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A Dangerous Vine

By: Barbara Ewing

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Paperback | 7 September 2000 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
444 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.7 x 12.8 x 2.8

Paperback

$74.75

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A rich, dark novel of buried secrets, new desires and a new land from the bestselling author of THE ACTRESSES. A novel of 50s New Zealand, as haunting and evocative as HEAVENLY CREATURES.

Margaret Rose Bennett, like her elder sister, Elizabeth, was named after the two English princesses. But Elizabeth is dead, and Margaret Rose still living, searching and reaching out for life and its meaning. And against the frankly odd, strained and curiously English household she inhabits in a New Zealand city, it is hard to make out the truth. So Margaret abandons what her parents think is right: learning English history, and the French language, listening to comedy shows on the World Service and returning home on the 9.30 tram and maps out a course of her own. She studies Maori at University and makes friends with the wayward Emily (daughter of the soon-to-be Prime Minister of New Zealand) and shy, independent Prudence. As a trio they study hard for their degrees, work by day at the local Government offices and by night sing, drink and laugh with the local Maori people - and fall in love. A new world, an enchanting world, and one with an underbelly of struggle, colour, passion and even violence. Far removed from the closed, ordered life of Margaret Rose's family, but perhaps not so detached from their own, secret history . . .

Here is an extraordinary, poetic novel of a society trapped in a time of its own, undercut by people that live and breathe with a vigour that bubbles and bursts through the silent surface.

Industry Reviews

A beautiful and profoundly moving novel. - WOMAN AND HOME

A breathlessly gripping tale with a dramatic climax. - SUNDAY POST

Ewing's rites-of-passage novel is given a delicious sharpness by the contrast in cultures and by her grasp of period detail, making it an achieved, subtle read. - SUNDAY TIMES

In that city, at the end of their street, was the sea. - This simple yet evocative line sets the scene for a powerful novel. Barbara Ewing introduces us to three girls growing up in a troubled New Zealand du

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