My History, I Think

‘I am, I suppose, a hoarder. I have carefully filed away all the pain, all the personal shame, that has failed to take written or printed shape and that forms the past. The past, which could break my heart … ’ Neither autobiography nor yet fiction, this fascinating book traces the workings inside the mind of a leading writer. It is part history, but it is also an intensely personal revelation as to the way a committed writer develops, and even why. The writer moves backwards and forwards between the present and the past, between last century and the century before last. The text twists in and out of the lines of certain stories and novels. We shift from one place to another — from Christchurch to Chicago, from Patagonia to the promenades of Nouméa. ‘The interesting part of a story is always concealed,’ says Eldred-Grigg — who then proceeds to give us glimpses of just what his secrets