Whaea Blue

Talia Marshall

• Publisher: Te Herenga Waka University Press
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781776922673
• Edition: 1

Time and whakapapa slowly unravel as Talia Marshall weaves her way across Aotearoa in a roster of decaying European cars. Along the way she will meet her father, pick up a ghost, transform into a wharenui, and make cocktail hour with Ans Westra. Men will come – Roman, Ben, Isaac – and some go. Others linger. And it is these men – her father, Paul, and grandfathers Mugwi Macdonald and Jim; her tipuna Nicola Sciascia, tohunga Kipa Hemi Whiro, Kupe himself – who she observes as she moves backwards into the future. With her ancestor Tutepourangi she relives Te Rauparaha' s bloody legacy, and attempts and fails to write her great historical novel. But it is her wahine, past and present, who carry her, even as the ground behind her smoulders. Tempestuous and haunting, Whaea Blue is a tribute to collective memory, the elasticity of self, and the women we travel through. It is a karanga to and from the abyss. It is a journey to peace.

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Echo Valley
• 2 Chicken feet
• 3 The Tower
• 4 Golden whare
• 5 Wake up darling, wake up
• 6 The lake
• 7 Legs 11
• 8 The blue tūī
• 9 Saturn’s return
• 10 This is the way he walked into the darkest, pinkest part of the whale and cried don’t tell the others
• 11 Who are you killing?
• 12 Lazy Susan
• 13 The Queen of Swords
• 14 Cultural Supervision
• 15 Pelorus Jim
• 16 The War of the Rātā
• 17 Widow song
• 18 Dolphin Princess
• 19 Blue. Mother. Orange. Go.
• 20 The Greenstone Room
• 21 Orphan girl
• 22 Ladies of Pōrangahau
• 23 The matriarch
• 24 Sisters of mercy
• 25 The good brother
• 26 Hello America!
• 27 Baggage claim
• 28 Baby, this isn’t Wonderland
• 29 House music
• 30 The She Tree
• 31 Postcard from Ans and the cocktail hour on the Underworld
• 32 One path to the sea
• 33 Roman candles
• 34 Young man crying
• 35 The ruru
• 36 Today
• 37 Karanga mai
• Author’s note
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements