From Under the Overcoat

Ten stories, mostly set in present-day New Zealand, each written in answer to an older work: Gogol's 'The Overcoat', Katherine Mansfield's 'The Doll's House', James Joyce's 'The Dead', 'Sleeping Beauty', the Māori creation story and others. The narrators include a teenage boy, a discontented middle-class wife with a way out, a young woman who has lost a year to marijuana smoke, an abused teenager, the worn-out father of a sick child, and Tawhiri, god of the weather, seeing out his old age at a television station. One story is told by a character from Joyce's tale. The book closes with notes on each story's source and the full text of Gogol's 'The Overcoat'.

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About the book

Form

Short stories

Set in

New Zealand

First published

2011

Author's age

49 when first published

ISBN

9781869790578 (Vintage, New Zealand)