Search - The Bone People

The Bone People
Author: Keri Hulme
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TagsBooker Prize Winner, Maori, New Zealand, SOLD, mnsrl, parent/child relationship

Subjects:Other Versions: Hardcover

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ISBN-13: 9780140089226
ISBN-10: 0140089225
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 10/7/1986
Pages: 450
Book Type: Paperback

Book Description:
Winner of the Booker Prize.



In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor -- a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most prized possession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon's feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality. Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge.

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Top Member Reviews

Mary Ann P. (MaryAnn1228) from CORINTH, ME wrote on 2/23/2006...

2 member(s) found this review helpful.

This is a book that lingers. I picked it up because of the cover and title.. which reached out to me. There were many things in the book that were so real, and deep.
Sometimes it was hard to read.
This is fiction that tells the truth.

Erin F. from BEAVER FALLS, PA wrote on 4/7/2007...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

This is a really interesting book! It's suspenseful and intelligently-written, and I highly recommend it.

From the back of the book...

"In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor-- a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most prized posession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon's federal charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality. Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge."

Pat H. (SWquilter) from PHOENIX, AZ wrote on 6/5/2006...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Kerewin Holmes lives alone in a tower by the New Zealand Sea. Part Maori, part European, she is a writer, a painter and something of a hermit. One day Simon, a mute, bedraggled, silver-haired boy, enters her tower and her life. Soon Kerewin becomes tied, by bonds of love, and of brutality, to Simon and his Maori father, Joe.

The Los Angeles Times said: "A novel that is mysterious and violent, gentle and unsettling, compassionate and honest."

This is a good book, but it is not an easy read -- there are parts that are fascinating, parts that are disturbing. . .

Suzanne P. from CHICAGO, IL wrote on 12/28/2005...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

This is an offbeat book, very tender and touching.


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Lynda C. (Readnmachine) from UMATILLA, OR wrote on 7/2/2008...


Powerful and disturbing book. An abused and traumatized child, a man whose dreams have died one by one, and a woman who has shut herself off from life come together in a mixture of violence and love that threatens to destroy all of them.