Author(s): Evana Belich

Business & Finance

Stories about the unifying subject of work - how to get it, avoid it or lose it. Wry, real and astute, these linked stories are from an exciting new talent. In BurgerKai, Mel is given a motivational talk on what she says is 'failing at a stupid, screwed-up sales job, selling stupid plastic shelving'. Her days at Pacific Wave Plastics are numbered.Meanwhile, in the next story, Vic bikes through Christchurch collecting mementoes from the houses she has lived in, while her ex-partner Emma makes the decision to move to Auckland to work at a plastics factory . . . And so the chain continues- characters walk from one story to the next, often oblivious to each other, perhaps related through colleagues, or having once attended the same school, or simply crossed paths on a beach that offers escape from work. Oblique connections unite them, as does their daily struggle to negotiate relationships while they try to survive employment, or avoid it, or face getting fired. 'Reading these stories was an utterly absorbing experience. E. R. Belich demonstrates insider knowledge of unions and working conditions in real peoples' everyday lives with a profound compassion that is never sentimental. Her characters are deeply observed as they thread their way in and out of loosely linked narratives. I was reminded of Elizabeth Strout's wonderful Olive Kitteridge. I kept catching my breath as I came across familiar detail presented with a fresh and loving eye; this is simply a must read.' - Fiona Kidman