Dunedin-based writer Talia Marshall's new book Whaea Blue Photo: supplied
Talia Marshall (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Takihiku) is a gifted writer but a reluctant one. While most debut authors refer to their new books as their babies she prefers to refer to Whaea Blue as an orphan
The book is an honest blend of memory, place and whakapapa, where Marshall interrogates her own world views, questions her recall and often refers to herself as an ‘unreliable narrator’. A phrase that oddly makes the reader trust her more.
Her self-deprecating humour is littered throughout her work as she recalls her mother’s early days living freely as a young lesbian in Wellington, working in a rest home dementia unit and moving to Foxton.
Marshall describes her passion to write as a compulsion, or ‘the reptile inside me that never sleeps’. Her unique style of writing is unrelenting to both beauty and beast.
Ans Westra’s book Māori is also investigated both with vigour and a distant empathy.
Marshall wrestles with the idea of the photographer as a figure in Aotearoa's art landscape as someone who ‘took’ photos of and from Māori but also as a person struggling to make money from her craft and capturing social histories. Asking the question, how did Ans get so close to us (Māori)?
The chapter Golden Whare is an ode to Talia Marshall's mother and the her friends that would come and go from her flat, occupying the family kitchen.
"I didn't want to write about my mother much, she is very much a live and we have an extremely close relationship".
"She was the most beautiful lesbian in Wellington".
A young Talia Marshall, her mothers friend and her Mum at their flat in their Brooklyn Wellington Photo: N Brown
Mormonism, mental health, abusive relationships, motherhood, colonisation and Te Rauparaha all unravel in Whaea Blue.
Talia’s book is available for pre-order only and at all bookstores from 8 August 2024.
