History in the making

Bustling novel packs in 100 years of life and action in NZ and abroad.

- NICHOLAS REID

THE SPANISH GARDEN, by Cliff Taylor (Quentin Wilson, $37.50)

Whatever else you decide about Cliff Taylor’s The Spanish Garden, you won’t deny that it manages to pack in a lot of busy action. Into its 250 pages are crammed a pre-colonial Māori battle, the Great Depression that blighted rural New Zealand in the early 1930s, the Spanish Civil War, post-war NZ and the waterfront dispute of 1951, Māori concerns about stolen land, a quick reference to the uproar over the 1981 Springbok tour and not one, but two tragic love stories.