Intimations of war

Two women, Maori and Pakeha, are at the centre of a novel in which the Taranaki land wars are the backdrop.

- KELLY ANA MOREY

It's early 1860 in Ngamotu New Plymouth and the highly contentious purchase of the Waitara Block is being finalised. Pākehā are building stockades around the settlement and militia are pouring in. Māori and Europeans know war between them is imminent. These weeks before the outbreak of the Taranaki Wars act as a historical backdrop to Lauren Keenan's novel.

The novel explores the circumstances of two women, Matāria/Minnie White and Frances Farrington, and also Henry White, husband of Matāria and ex-suitor of Frances, who connects them. Both women are unloved outsiders in Ngāmotu: Matāria has returned after years as a slave for a Waikato iwi and Frances - a spinster with no dowry - is a recent arrival from London.

The exploration of this liminal space, and how it affects the two women's daily domestic lives, is one of the novel's strengths. "I know you say the land is your place," another freed slave tells Matāria. "But we're on our land right now and we are not free.

THE SPACE BETWEEN