The Settler's Plot: How Stories Take Place in New Zealand

Europeans Arrive On A Beach, Make Markets And Push Inland. They Take The Land And Transform It. They Make Themselves At Home; They Dream Of Other Places. And The Stories They Write Take Shape In Settings - The Beach, The Farm, The Bush, The Suburb - That Become Imaginary Versions Of Actual Places. Those Settings Sometimes Host Stories That Are Too Simple - Too Flattering, Too Blaming - But In The Work Of Our Best Writers, A Richer History Of Settlement Comes Into Focus. Taking A New Approach To The Cultural History Of This Country, The Settler's Plot Is A Study Of The Relationship Between Literature And Place In New Zealand. Through Fascinating And Unpredictable Readings Of Some Of Our Greatest Literature, From Maning And Guthrie-smith To Mansfield, Sargeson, Curnow And Frame, Calder Investigates The Often Contradictory Meanings That Pakeha Have Found In Our Most Familiar Settings.