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Kehua!: A Ghost Story
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Product Description
Product Description
A kehua is a Maori ghost - the wandering dead searching for their ancestral home. Without the proper rituals to send them on their way, kehua are forced to remain on Earth to haunt their relatives. They're not dangerous, and they even try to help the living, though it's wise not to listen to them. They tend to get things wrong...In the wake of murder and suicide, a young woman flees New Zealand, hoping to escape the past and find a new life. But the unshriven spirits of the recently departed can't rest peacefully, and are forced to emigrate with her, crossing oceans to finally settle in - of all places - Muswell Hill, London. Here their shadowy flutterings and murmured advice haunts the young woman and her female bloodline across the decades, across the generations. 'Run!' the Kehua whisper. 'Run, run, run!'
About the Author
Fay Weldon was brought up in New Zealand. Creator of the slogan 'Go to work on an egg', writer of the first ever episode of Upstairs Downstairs and current Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, Fay is best known for her novels Praxis, Life and Loves of a She-Devil and Worst Fears. In 2001 she was awarded a CBE. She lives in Dorset with her husband, the poet Nick Fox.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Kehua are Maori spirits, whose role is to shepherd unsettled souls back into the family fold, so that they can rest in peace. But how did they get to Highgate in London? And does it matter if the kehua occasionally get their instructions to `run' mixed up with a command to `kill'...? Beverley has lived in London for the whole of her adult life but the demons of her past seem destined to be visited upon her daughter, granddaughters, great-granddaughter until the kehua are able to set things straight...
Weldon is up-front in her use of the kehua as a metaphor for inherited family behaviours - but then, there are very few authorial devices we are not privy to in this novel, where the novelist and her own ghosts take up almost as much space as Beverley's story. Once it got momentum going (and with fewer authorial interruptions) the McLean family saga definitely had points of interest and humour - but this was not until at least halfway through the book, by which time you may well have given up. Even so, the family as a whole was not as interesting as one might have been forgiven for hoping, given the build-up...
"Some novels...charge along like a flood; others spread sideways and lie calmly over neighbouring fields. This is one of the latter." A quote from fairly early on in the novel, so I can't say that I wasn't forewarned. Still, I had hoped for either a more gripping narrative (rather than one where gaps are filled in with determinedly `shocking' or `quirky' acts of god and human nature) or at least a more satisfying conclusion. There was no danger of empathy for any of the characters, except possibly to an extent Beverley herself, which made for a vaguely entertaining but slow and very superficial read, despite all the circulating spirits. Disappointing.
Weldon is up-front in her use of the kehua as a metaphor for inherited family behaviours - but then, there are very few authorial devices we are not privy to in this novel, where the novelist and her own ghosts take up almost as much space as Beverley's story. Once it got momentum going (and with fewer authorial interruptions) the McLean family saga definitely had points of interest and humour - but this was not until at least halfway through the book, by which time you may well have given up. Even so, the family as a whole was not as interesting as one might have been forgiven for hoping, given the build-up...
"Some novels...charge along like a flood; others spread sideways and lie calmly over neighbouring fields. This is one of the latter." A quote from fairly early on in the novel, so I can't say that I wasn't forewarned. Still, I had hoped for either a more gripping narrative (rather than one where gaps are filled in with determinedly `shocking' or `quirky' acts of god and human nature) or at least a more satisfying conclusion. There was no danger of empathy for any of the characters, except possibly to an extent Beverley herself, which made for a vaguely entertaining but slow and very superficial read, despite all the circulating spirits. Disappointing.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was really enthrawlled by this story and read it on four flights that I had to take to Bulgaria. Fay Weldon sucks you into her world. As the story teller I feel as if I know her and her quirky friends and relatives. The kehua that roam her world along with her characters come to like at will and along with Bevrly and Scarlet I too feel the pace and the kehua out of the corner of my eye. All I can say is Kapai Fay!
2 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am a big fan, and have been for more years than I care to put in print.
One of the highlights of my career as a bookstore manager was meeting Ms. Weldon for a signing (Cloning of Joanna May). This event followed a call I received for the writer herself, while she was shopping at the bookstore and was surprised, and happy, to see her backlist on our shelves. In a US store, where regrettably, her talents are under appreciated. The staff explained that I was a fan, and well, there you have it.
This new book is a gem. Our author is hurt by something clearly. (Having to do with the Upstairs Downstairs movie perhaps?) The "popping into the story" is cleaver again, and reading this tale feels a bit more like reading "Auto da Fay" than a novel. All the same, it is the writing, the style, and the message that make this a lovely read and time well spent with an old (forgive me) friend.
Staying creative let alone original, is no easy task for sure. We have all followed our beloved authors even when the writing of present was a shadow of it's former self. That Ms. Weldon still can capture our minds and hearts is a testament to her true and wicked genius.
One of the highlights of my career as a bookstore manager was meeting Ms. Weldon for a signing (Cloning of Joanna May). This event followed a call I received for the writer herself, while she was shopping at the bookstore and was surprised, and happy, to see her backlist on our shelves. In a US store, where regrettably, her talents are under appreciated. The staff explained that I was a fan, and well, there you have it.
This new book is a gem. Our author is hurt by something clearly. (Having to do with the Upstairs Downstairs movie perhaps?) The "popping into the story" is cleaver again, and reading this tale feels a bit more like reading "Auto da Fay" than a novel. All the same, it is the writing, the style, and the message that make this a lovely read and time well spent with an old (forgive me) friend.
Staying creative let alone original, is no easy task for sure. We have all followed our beloved authors even when the writing of present was a shadow of it's former self. That Ms. Weldon still can capture our minds and hearts is a testament to her true and wicked genius.
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