SWIMMING UPSTREAM

Acclaimed author Lloyd Jones explores ideas of alienation, othering and familial shame in his latest novel.

- SUE ORR

THE FISH, by Lloyd Jones (Penguin, $36)

Do many readers notice a novel’s epigraph? Other writers and reviewers tend to check it out – it’s pithy and usually intellectual, handy for the “famous quotes” folder. It also offers a glimpse of how the author would like us to think about their work, a signpost guiding us on to a path through a dense forest of story, should we need it.

Acclaimed New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones has chosen a quote by PolishAmerican poet CzesÅ‚aw MiÅ‚osz to open his latest novel, The Fish. “When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.” I found myself leaning heavily into it while reading The Fish. By the end, I’d enjoyed the journey very much, but also found myself curious about what was off the beaten track.