Loop Tracks

Charlie at 16 is pregnant. Circumstances blow up the normal life awaiting her. Loop Tracks follows simple twists of fate around history and women's lives, in an utterly compelling novel.

It's 1978- the Auckland abortion clinic has been forced to close and sixteen-year-old Charlie has to fly to Sydney, but the plane is delayed on the tarmac. It's 2019- Charlie's tightly contained Wellington life with her grandson Tommy is interrupted by the unexpected intrusions of Tommy's first girlfriend, Jenna, and the father he has never known, Jim. The year turns, and everything changes again.

Loop Tracks is a major New Zealand novel, written in real time against the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic and the New Zealand General Election and euthanasia referendum in 2020.

'Loop Tracks is a wonderful novel written in time, for our times. It's about abortion and euthanasia, conspiracy theories and intergenerational guilt, but mainly it's about the love between a grandmother and her grown-up grandson, and the small group around them. It's the best thing I've read on how someone can become radicalized, and so for helping to understand the strange, uncomfortable places we've reached politically and socially. Orr is amazingly astute at illuminating the complex webs of connection between the personal and the political, and why that matters. The stunning ending, in particular, reminds us why we need to keep finding new ways to narrate women's lives.'
Ingrid Horrocks

About the Author

Sue Orr is the award-winning author of two books of short stories and a novel. She teaches creative writing at Victoria University, Wellington. Since 2016, she has set up programs and taught creative writing for women in women's refuges and prisons. She lives in Wellington with her husband, Adrian Orr.