Bad behaviour

Less is more in these deftly crafted stories of damaged women.

- KELLY ANA MOREY

RUIN AND OTHER STORIES, by Emma Hislop (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $30)

Gone are the days when only a few books a year by Māori writers found their way to the shelves of bookshops, and if they were very lucky, on to the bestsellers list. These days, it’s a fairly constant stream of titles, and the quality, suffice to say, is there in spades. Hot off the press is Kāi Tahu writer Emma Hislop’s first book-length foray into publishing, Ruin and Other Stories, a deftly crafted and intriguing collection of 13 very good short stories.

Thematically, the collection revolves around the broken lives of damaged girls and women. Disintegrating relationships, rape, alcohol abuse and binge drinking, abortion, jealousy, one-night stands, drug overdoses, postpartum depression, suicide, bad decisions, bad, good and indifferent sex, eating disorders, obsessive compulsions, child pornography, partner/boyfriend theft, inappropriate interest in young girls, revenge and so on. All the bad things really. All recounted by Hislop in very measured and undramatic ways, because in Ruin and Other Stories this is women’s lot.