Author Laurence Fearnley Photo: supplied
Ōtepoti Dunedin author Laurence Fearnley’s absorbing new novel At the Grand Glacier Hotel is, impressively, her thirteenth.
In its pages Fearnley beautifully articulates the awkwardness and beauty within ourselves. In essense, she is adept at expressing the frailty and gentle wonder of our human condition..
In the novel Fearnley matches the inner thoughts of her protagonist to the surrounding environments of an old character-filled hotel, and her small trails through the grand, dramatic South Island landscape beyond.
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In At the Grand Glacier Hotel the 25-years-married Libby has gone on a short holiday with her husband to a remote resort on Te Wai Pounamu’s West Coast. She is recovering from cancer.
Yet, when a storm separates the couple, Libby finds herself on a quiet adventure - with time to connect with herself, her surroundings and an odd assortment of guests and residents.
At the Grand Glacier Hotel is part of a series Fearnley is completing in which each novel focuses on a different one of the five senses. In this case it is - in one of the quietest of places you could find - sound. From the creaks of the old hotel and sound of West Coast rain, to listening out for the call of the allusive South Island Kōkako.
Laurence Fearnley’s previous work has met with plenty of acclaim. Her novel The Hut Builder won the fiction category in the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards, Reach was long-listed for the 2014 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and Edwin and Matilda runner-up in the fiction category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Second novel, Room, was shortlisted for the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
In 2016 Fearnley won the NZSA/ Janet Frame Memorial Award and in 2017 was the joint winner of the Landfall essay competition. She was named a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate in 2019.
