Kirsty Gunn was born in Wellington and studied at Victoria University and Oxford. She is the author of This Place You Return to is Home (1998), the critically acclaimed Rain (1994) which was made into a feature film, The Keepsake (1997), Featherstone (2003) which was a New York Times Notable Book, The Boy and the Sea (2006) which won the 2007 Sundial Scottish Book of the Year, and 44 Things (2007). Her novels and short stories have been published in over twelve countries and languages around the world. She has a Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee and is currently at work on her next book and a number of short stories. She is married with two daughters and lives in London and Scotland. Gunn returns to Wellington in 2009 to take up the Randell Cottage residency.
Read a review of Kirsty Gunn's The Boy and the Sea from The Observer
Read an article by Kirsty Gunn for The Guardian and an extract from her new book 44 Things: My Year at Home
BOOKS
Rain
The debut of an astonishing new literary talent, Rain proves that its author, Kirsty Gunn, is already a master of her craft. Written in luminous prose and embroidered with sensuous imagery, Rain is an unforgettable novel. Twelve-year-old Janey and her younger brother, Jim spend summers at a lake with their parents. Ignored for long stretches and then called upon suddenly to mix drinks or receive drunken kisses, the children huddle together in tender, compulsive closeness. Nourished only by their devotion to one another, the two fill their neglected hours exploring the lush, dangerous landscape and protecting each other from the unpredictable moods of the dark adult world that surrounds them. A haunting, beautifully rendered story that explores the hidden dangers of childhood, Rain has established Kirsty Gunn as one of the most promising and original writers of her generation.
The Keepsake
“To crack open Kirsty Gunn’s second novel is to fumble unwittingly with the lid of Pandora’s box. . . . Its figures of speech, lovely on the page, turn unholy once they’ve taken on life . . . [but] go ahead, open it, it’s worth the risk.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Gunn creates a sensation akin to drifting under the influence of a very powerful drug. The writing flows beautifully and deliciously, gradually revealing a tale of obsession, addiction and abuse.”—Library Journal
“The Keepsake’s insistent, lyrical rhythm acts upon the reader like the hallucinogenic experience of its narrator’s tale. . . . Storytelling redeems the past, breaking the tyranny of history.”—The London Evening Standard
“Kirsty Gunn has the originality of a poet. Her dangerous, shifting terrain is the underworld of female desire, and at the heart of this disquieting tale is a nightmare of erotic obsession.”—The Times (London)
This Place You Return To Is Home
With just two novels, the author of Rain and The Keepsake has received international acclaim and established herself as a uniquely powerful, evocative, and significant voice - "a young master" in the words of the Los Angeles Times. Now Kirsty Gunn gives us a collection of short stories that astonishes with the resonant spareness and lyricism of her craft. In these stories, mothers escape to remote country villages, making prisoners of their children. A young man is made an indentured servant by his father, his violence atoning for loneliness. A wife comes to fear the closeness of her own husband's attentions. Haunted by the past, these stories explore the paradox of home as a place of both departure and return, comprising a range of voices portrayed with breathtaking skill. This Place You Return to Is Home cements Kirsty Gunn's reputation as one of our most talented writers.
Featherstone
Kirsty Gunn's spellbinding third novel is a portrait of the small town of Featherstone and the interior lives of its inhabitants. Over the course of one weekend, years after the beautiful and spirited Francie Johanssen fled town, rumors of her return stir memories that threaten to disrupt the community. Gunn reveals how Francie's absence continues to shape the subconscious longings, hopes, and dreams of those she left behind, including Margaret, the local hotel's promiscuous bartender; Mary Susan, a troubled and rebellious teenager who wants to get out of town as soon as she can; Francie's elderly uncle Sonny; Harland, the faithless minister; and Kate, his despondent wife. Affected most of all, perhaps, is Ray, Francie's old high school boyfriend who has never been able to let go of her. As tension mounts in Featherstone, Gunn elegantly crafts a story that is "richly layered and rewarding" (Scotland on Sunday).
The Boy and the Sea
From the author of Rain and Featherstone comes a story of a sun-drenched, sea-soaked day which changes a boy’s life forever. At the start of a summer’s day, Ward is waiting on the beach. His friend, Alex, wants him to come to a party at Alison’s where there’ll be girls and drinks and the possibilities of fun. But Ward is shy and self conscious and struggling to move from under the weight of his powerful father. He’d rather wait on the beach for the surf to come up. As the the sun moves towards its highest point and the girls’ laughter carries along the wind towards Ward, the tide changes and Ward is faced with a dramatic event that will change his life forever. This beautiful and intense coming-of-age story captures perfectly the discomforts and challenges of being fifteen years old with the world stretching out in front of you. Sensual, heady, as though dazed by the heat of her pages, Gunn slowly unfolds a tale of danger and sexuality, of mothers and sons and the fathers who rule them, and of the sea.
44 Things
A breathtakingly intimate treasury of reflections by a distinguished literary novelist, celebrating marriage, friendship and motherhood. 44 Things is a mosaic of personal meditations – stories, essays, poems and letters – written over the course of one year in moments stolen from the vibrant and chaotic world that inspired them. Both a celebration of the home, and a call for our recognition of the domestic sphere as a proper subject for the serious writer, 44 Things is a meditation upon the people we were and the people we have become, an intimate bedside book that explores the web of relationships in which we find ourselves. In these forty-four pieces, one for each year of her life, Kirsty Gunn draws us into the most private realms of her world, in what is a unique and inspiring work.