I started my review of The Graveyard Book by saying what an embarrassment of riches of reading I’ve had recently and as I’d just finished this book before I wrote that review you’ll probably get a good idea of why I was feeling that way.

Sydney Bridge Upside Down was first published in 1968 and has just been reprinted and reissued by Text Publishing (literally just – last week!). And how very, very, VERY lucky we are. The book is set in a small New Zealand out of the way bay – Calliope Bay (apparently modelled on Hicks Bay, where the author spent some time as a child – more on that below) and is narrated to us by Harry. Harry’s mum has gone to the city for the summer and his cousin Caroline has come to stay with him, his younger brother and his dad.

Caroline is beautiful – and seemingly entrancing for every man and boy in the bay, including Harry who isn’t overly happy about the attention Caroline attracts from everyone (and I mean everyone), and struggles with his own ambivalent and sometimes powerful feelings towards her. Meanwhile it’s summer holidays and so they’re all at play – in their house, in caves, at waterfalls, on the wharf, at the neighbours (there’s like 6 houses of people), in gossip, and shadowing everything there’s “the works” – an abandoned meatworks, crumbling, the scene of several deaths – excluding the more than several animal deaths obviously.

In the brand new introduction Kate de Goldi quotes Patrick Evans as saying that: “Sydney Bridge Upside Down… is the great, and unread, New Zealand novel.” And… oh… is it ever. Gothic, thrilling, creepy, drowsy with summer sunniness – this is that laid back, mad, bad New Zealandness we all know exists but don’t really know how to talk about.

The book starts as a relatively straight-forward seeming narrative but gradually it becomes clear that these are not straight-forward lives – there are questions here, lingering and being ignored, and you just know they can’t be ignored forever. Eventually they will be faced and they will be answered and most likely something terrible, or at least terribly creepy, will happen.

And it does.

The writing is intense, veering between narrative and dreamlike stream of consciousness, but never losing any focus or my attention. I could easily have read this in one sitting, if not distracted by the rest of life.

Sydney Bridge Upside Down drew me in, thrilled me, wrong-footed me and, ultimately, shocked me. It is a wonderful piece of work to have back, and I hope that this time around it is read.

A lot.

Starting with you *points*.

P.S. I’ve been to Hicks Bay once about 9 (?) years ago. It’s beautiful in that lazy New Zealand way. You drive in and drive along the beachside road and there’s a few houses and suddenly there are several concrete boxes and you think that’s incredibly strange, it’s like a factory in the middle of nowhere. And of course that’s pretty much what it was for a long time. It’s one of those disparate and ever so odd places that you stumble across in New Zealand.

Oh, and there was a kunekune pig with lots of little hairy piglets running around. I desperately wanted to pick one up and take it home with me. But I didn’t, because I’m responsible. *sigh*