Latest news with #Chidgey
Scroll.in
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
‘The Book of Guilt': What if Hitler were assassinated and World War II ended in compromise?
Catherine Chidgey's ninth novel, The Book of Guilt, has been hotly anticipated. Following the critical and commercial success of her last two novels, it was the subject of a bidding war between UK publishers. The Book of Guilt is also now the first of her books to be released in Australia at launch: a depressingly rare feat for a New Zealand author. Chidgey's career has been defined by a willingness to experiment and innovate with new genres, subjects and forms. Shifting from the New Zealand focus of her recent novels, The Book of Guilt is set in a version of 1979 Britain. It operates as a disturbing thriller that unfolds from three different perspectives. While its setting is something of a departure for Chidgey, the novel continues her interest in the legacy of Nazi Germany, which some of her previous works have examined. It also explores the questions of guilt, awareness and moral responsibility which have preoccupied Chidgey in her earlier novels, particularly with regard to characters who are trapped within, or even victimised by, exploitative systems. A government program for orphans Vincent and his triplet brothers William and Lawrence, at 13, are the last children living in Captain Scott House, an isolated countryside home in the Sycamore Scheme (a government program for the care of orphans). Their days are strictly regimented by their three guardians – Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night – who record both their dreams and transgressions, and administer medication to help them overcome a mysterious 'Bug'. The promise is that once they are deemed well enough, they will be relocated to the seaside resort town of Margate, where all the children before them have gone, to enjoy its rides and attractions. Until then, their contact with the outside world is limited. Elsewhere, 13-year-old Nancy is living in similarly constrained and isolated circumstances. She has been raised by doting parents within the walls of their suburban home, never permitted to step outside. As she starts to chafe at her confinement, she grows increasingly suspicious of her mother and father, and their strange obsession with the Sycamore children. Finally, the newly appointed Minister of Loneliness has been charged with dismantling the Sycamore Scheme. Its dwindling (unstated) benefits are no longer sufficient to justify the expense of running the houses, and she is left to determine what to do with the remaining children. She is desperately seeking a positive outcome – something that will mitigate the scandals from the program's past – while also strangely fearful at the prospect of having to visit Vincent and his brothers at Captain Scott House. An eerie alternative history In many ways, the world and period that Chidgey establishes seem familiar. A prime minister resembling Margaret Thatcher has just won the general election. The IRA is still active. Jim'll Fix It, a show with the premise of children writing to Jimmy Saville asking him to make a dream come true, is on TV. But there are also differences. In this world, the moon landing occurred in 1957, not 1969. The polio vaccine and mass-produced penicillin have been available for far longer than they have in our history. And, crucially, the Sycamore Scheme was established in 1944, following the successful assassination of Adolf Hitler. The Book of Guilt, then, can be understood as an alternative history novel. This genre typically explores the timelines and scenarios that might result from a historical event having a different outcome. Within this tradition, World War Two is a frequent subject of speculation. Chidgey's alternative history hinges on a more subtle difference. What if Major Axel von dem Bussche 's 1943 attempted suicide bombing of Hitler had succeeded? As a result, the Nazi leadership are unseated and an interim government negotiates a surrender to the Allied powers. Rather than Germany's total defeat and capitulation, the European war ends in compromise and 'difficult decisions'. We are not told exactly what Nazi crimes went unpunished because of this determination to secure 'peace at any price'. But one of the terms of the 'Gothenburg Treaty' that ended the war was that the results of the inhumane, often deadly medical research performed in the concentration camps by SS physician Josef Mengele and others should be shared with the Allies. It is clear from early in the novel that the Sycamore Scheme operates as a sinister continuation of these practices, though its exact nature – and the origins of Vincent and his brothers – are a slowly unravelling mystery. Literary thrillers and Nazi legacy As New Zealand literary critic Philip Matthews observes, the The Book of Guilt can be read as a meeting point between two strands in Chidgey's writing. It follows The Axeman's Carnival (2022) and Pet (2023) as the third in a string of tightly plotted literary thrillers.e It is also her third novel to consider the legacy of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Like The Wish Child (2016) and Remote Sympathy (2020), The Book of Guilt is preoccupied with the subject of complicity: how characters live within, accept and deflect their full awareness of systems that exploit, violently dehumanise and murder others. What subtle, internal trades and compromises are they prepared to make for their own comforts and security? Or even just to preserve their own self-image? These are always pertinent themes, and Chidgey's alternative history provides her with a new lens for exploring them. Her vision of slightly altered late-70s Britain, one that has become rapidly tawdry, bleak and cruel for the sake of a few limited advancements, is powerful. The novel also offers an intriguing commentary on 1979 itself as a tipping point in British history. The cold pragmatism of the new conservative government justified sacrificing the welfare of a considerable portion of the population for greater prosperity. Chidgey's scenario recalls Thatcher's positioning of herself as the ruthless, unflinching doctor capable of curing the ' British Disease '. In this regard, The Book of Guilt joins a small tradition of literary alternative histories, which use a skewed perspective on the period they examine to reflect contemporary anxieties and preoccupations. It brings to mind Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, which explores how a populist leader – elected at exactly the wrong time – can light a powder keg of racist resentment. And also Ian McEwan's Machines Like Me, where the continued work of mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing on artificial intelligence gives rise to an alternative 1980s Britain. There, new forms of robotic consciousness are the subject of both fascination and uneasy suspicion. But, of course, the novel The Book of Guilt most closely recalls is Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me G o, which also features a remote country home for mysteriously parentless children, in an alternative Britain where medical history has taken a different, sinister path. Reading The Book of Guilt with an awareness of Never Let Me Go makes it almost impossible to not anticipate key revelations quite early on. However, Chidgey's approach to this scenario serves as an interesting counterpoint to Ishiguro's in some ways. In Never Let Me Go, the adolescent protagonists are prompted by their guardians to attempt to demonstrate their humanity to a largely indifferent world. It ends with their melancholic, fatalistic acceptance of their lot. The Book of Guilt, by contrast, follows Vincent's attempts to comprehend his place in a setting gradually revealed to be inexplicably hostile. As his suspicions of his 'mothers' mount, he slowly realises he and his brothers are being constantly tested for signs of 'brutish' behaviour, ethical lapses and hidden, subliminal urges. The reasons for this scrutiny speak to broader themes around nature and nurture explored in the novel, and the temptation and dangers of arbitrary, 'scientific' classifications and definitions of human life and value. The Book of Guilt is not derivative of Never Let Me Go, but a rewarding variation on a similar theme. Adolescence as liminal space The Book of Guilt is also the third of Chidgey's novels to focus on characters entering early adolescence, and interrogate their developing knowledge and moral responsibility – even within systems and circumstances arguably beyond their control. The Wish Child examines the perspective of children who come of age while indoctrinated in the poisonous ideologies of Nazi Germany. Pet follows the narrative of 12-year-old Justine, who falls under the thrall of a charismatic yet strangely malicious teacher, Ms Price, who both woos and exploits her. Like Chidgey's other adolescent protagonists, Vincent is not positioned as a perfect victim. While thoughtful and sympathetic, he is also complicit in various acts of cruelty. He ultimately makes a fraught, highly compromised 'ethical' choice at the novel's denouement, which will haunt him, and likely the reader as well. In The Book of Guilt, Chidgey continues to explore early adolescence as a liminal stage of life, where levels of awareness and accountability are often frustratingly (and fascinatingly) unclear. Though Chidgey's handling of her younger characters remains astute, I was most taken with the Minister of Loneliness in this novel (though it did take me a moment to remember this is now an actual position in the UK government). Her narrative delivers some much-needed humour at various points, particularly in her interactions with the implacable, Thatcher-like prime minister. Tangled and morally complex While The Minister of Loneliness occupies a more remote and peripheral role in the novel than Vincent and Nancy, her weary adult perspective provides a necessary point of contrast. Her initial attempts to deny the horrors that have landed at her door are immediately, damningly, relatable. As the novel develops, her reluctance and inertia give way to rushed, desperate decisions and ruinous consequences. She feels very familiar. Very human. But what at first seems like a simple satire of an ineffectual bureaucrat proves surprising. The Minister is not ultimately overwhelmed by either the history she is forced to confront, nor by her own failings. She recognises, in the end, the weight of her responsibilities, even when she is given leeway to ignore or deflect them. In The Minister of Loneliness, Chidgey delivers an acutely realised portrait of a faintly good person who resolves, miraculously, to do a little better. Hers is arguably not the most heroic trajectory in this dark, tangled and compelling novel – but it feels like the closest it comes to a moment of moral triumph. Julian Novitz, Senior Lecturer, Writing, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology.
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
UBS Remains a Hold on Suncorp Group (SNMYF)
UBS analyst Kieren Chidgey maintained a Hold rating on Suncorp Group (SNMYF – Research Report) today and set a price target of A$21.65. The company's shares closed last Tuesday at $12.06. Confident Investing Starts Here: Chidgey covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as ASX , Insurance Australia Group Limited, and Medibank Private. According to TipRanks, Chidgey has an average return of -0.5% and a 55.00% success rate on recommended stocks. Suncorp Group has an analyst consensus of Moderate Buy, with a price target consensus of $13.80. Based on Suncorp Group's latest earnings release for the quarter ending December 31, the company reported a quarterly revenue of $7.35 billion and a net profit of $1.1 billion. In comparison, last year the company earned a revenue of $9.5 billion and had a net profit of $582 million Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 6 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is positive on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders buying their shares of SNMYF in relation to earlier this year.
Newsroom
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
For the love of Chidgey
There is something obviously and explicitly special going on with the reading public's adoration of Catherine Chidgey. It has been going on for some time now, first elevated when she wrote her first bestseller The Wish Child (2016), confirmed when she wrote Remote Sympathy (2020), blown up when she wrote The Axeman's Carnival (2022), and now coalesced into a kind of near-worship with her latest novel, The Book of Guilt – the biggest-selling book in New Zealand right now of any kind and by any author ie local or international, with a signing queue at the recent Auckland Writers Festival going out the door and into the rain. She inspires a feverish quality in readers, more so even than Eleanor Catton, not merely because the Booker winner lives remotely in Britain (Chidgey is a citizen of the republic of Waikato). Catton's work is neither as intimate or felt as Chidgey's fiction. The hype is real. The latest example was in the responses from readers in the latest ReadingRoom giveaway contest. A free book is offered each week. Some of them are very popular contests and some of them generate very entertaining replies to whatever question is posed. Nothing compares to the responses in the contest to win The Book of Guilt (as well as Delirious, by Damien Wilkins). Readers were asked to say something interesting about either author. One or two chose to make comments about Wilkins ('Damien once stayed in my house in Queenstown, but I was away on a film job up north. He might've put a book I didn't read signed and left in the bookshelf in the guest's bedroom'). Everyone else had something to say about Chidgey – and they were not always complimentary, not all of them from fans. There was a strange frisson going on within the 100 or so replies. A selection follows. Buddy Mikaere Last year I visited the States on a tour to retrace the American Civil War. Back here in Aotearoa I am involved in a project that will see the establishment of a NZ Wars Centre – Te Putake O Te Riri. As the NZ Wars of the 1860s were happening at the same time that the civil war was raging in America – I wanted to see how they had depicted that struggle at various battlefields and museums. At the departure airport, my partner Fi gave me a copy of The Axeman's Carnival to read on the plane. I loved it, finishing it at my Chicago hotel the day after I arrived. I flew to Washington and after a few days wandering about, went south to Fredericksburg in Virginia. On the outskirts of Fredericksburg I stayed with some Facebook friends who lived in the woodlands that surround the city. Over dinner that night – I think it was during a conversation about woodpeckers – I told the lady of the house about Tama the magpie, the central 'character' in Axeman and gave her the book to read. At breakfast the next morning, my red-eyed hostess told me she had stayed up all night reading the book which she couldn't put down. She said that despite the cultural differences she was completely captured by the power of the narrative and the fiery finale of the book in particular. I should explain that the couple made their living from their on-line consultancy and – just like Tama – they needed to have a 'presence' to attract and hold their prospective customers. The woodland setting of their house, the impatient subdued hammering of the woodpeckers in the trees – all combined to enliven the Chidgey narrative and bring it to a charged emotional level for my lovely hostess. As a result of that book I now have two great friends for life, and they look forward to visiting with me in the Coromandel. I might even introduce them to our local magpies. Madeleine Setchell I read recently in the Listener that Catherine and her husband had a long struggle with infertility. She may have spoken about this before, but it was not something I was aware of until recently. The article stated, 'For 13 years, she couldn't write. She and husband Alan Bekhuis, a mechanical engineer and daguerreotypist, wanted more than anything to have a child. Those 13 awful, long years were subsumed with IVF attempts and the debilitating side effects of the drugs used in the treatments. 'Alice was born in 2015. She was carried by a surrogate, who is now part of their family. The couple donated sperm to another woman desperate to have a child. That child is also now part of their family. She says, of Alice, 'She is the joy of my life'.' I thought she was so very brave to talk about this, despite infertility being very common there are still many reasons people don't speak about it publicly, or even to their families. I know Catherine's words will provide comfort to readers struggling with their own infertility challenges, and I hope, in some small way, they will know they are not alone. Full disclaimer, I am the Chairperson of Fertility NZ, a small but mighty charity that walks alongside all New Zealanders facing infertility. So perhaps I am on the lookout for these things. But it did really strike me a few weeks ago how great it was she included this in her interview. I too have a much wanted, and much loved daughter named Alice. Veronica Harrod I've had two personal interactions with well known authors. Keri Hulme of The Bone People who wrote a letter back to me in response to the letter I sent her, and Catherine Chidgey who I communicated with on one of the many digital platforms that have made letter writing a dying art in its own right. Perhaps that was why things went pear shaped. I'd finished her book The Axeman's Carnival which, like all her books I've read, I enjoyed immensely. But after I finished reading it I wondered why all the publicity I'd seen rarely mentioned the violence against the main female character Marnie. Instead it was all about the magpie as if the violence against Marnie was something unpleasant to be ignored. A common story in this country unfortunately. Then I told her about the magpies I had known. About one who a former neighbour of mine gave the name Mr Wu. It used to visit a few houses in the vicinity for a feed and to make a nuisance of itself. The first time Mr Wu visited me the magpie stalked in the open front door squawking for a feed. After that when Mr Wu visited he would stalk around the computer desk, where I was sitting, chewing on wires with his beak, peering at me from the top of the desktop computer or falling asleep in my arms when tired and needing a nap. He would make himself comfortable in my arms, his beak would curl into his chest, his eyes would close and he would be out for the count until it was time to get busy again. I also told her about a magpie I had rescued from the side of the road as I was driving home from work one evening. It was flopping around with its wings outstretched so I pulled over and discovered it had almost had both its feet severed. I don't know what had caused the injury all I knew was the magpie would be vulnerable and in pain from the injury. So I grabbed a jumper from the front seat of my car, threw it over the magpie and bundled it in the car before turning around and driving to a local vet. A vet on duty took the magpie into another room. After a while he came out and said there wasn't much that could be done. I said I didn't own the magpie. I had found it on the side of the road flapping its wings and clearly distressed. He said it was unusual for the magpie to let me pick it up and transport in a moving vehicle. I agreed the best course of action was to put the magpie to sleep. Unfortunately the author found my story distressing – which it is in one way – but in another way the magpie was fortunate I responded to its distress. I was surprised by her reaction because The Axeman's Carnival is a book based on violence and a strong vein of violence runs through her novels often. I even said with some incredulity, 'But your book is about violence.' Perhaps though it's one thing to describe violence in a book but quite another to be in the thick of violence. Helen Nugteren I am definitely not a follower of fashion and hullabaloo does my head in. Give me Owen Marshall any day. I smile in recognition of his superb craftsmanship. Once the shouting about Catherine Chidgey has died down, I might get around to borrowing the new one from the mobile library in Arthur's Pass. Jan Pryor I love both authors for different reasons. Damien scares the bejesus out of me with his gentle terrifying depiction of ageing; I adore the Chidge because she recognised my genius and awarded my short story 1st prize in a competition a few years ago. Susan Gresson I waited in line at the book launch for Pet because I wanted to tell Catherine that after reading Remote Sympathy several times and contemplating the different perspectives I couldn't decide where my sympathy lay. The book places the reader in a position not to judge but to feel what it was like to live in a period where moral issues were not only dangerous but ambivalent. She replied, 'I couldn't make up my mind either.' It is this quality of her work that I love. she doesn't prescribe, she allows the reader to embrace the character's perspective. In a time where there are so many extreme and definite opinions, it is so refreshing to be treated like a competent reader to come to your own conclusion & struggle with the banality of evil. Patricia Fenton Back in the last millennium we were living in a charming little German village in the State of Hessen. My husband reckoned we might as well have had a flashing Kiwi sign above our apartment. Being in Central Europe, family, friends and acquaintances found their way to us, and they were always welcome. One day our daughter, Virginia, phoned and asked if her friend Cath, and Cath's mother, Pat, could come and stay with us. Cath was on a Goethe scholarship and her mother was visiting from New Zealand. 'You won't regret it,' Virginia said. 'They're good company, and Cath is destined for great things. She's going to be famous.' Our daughter was right – on all counts. The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) is available in bookstores nationwide.
The Spinoff
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 23
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. This week we are publishing Unity Auckland's bestsellers only, but will resume usual service and include Wellington next week. AUCKLAND 1 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) Thanks to an epic Auckland Writers Festival in which Chidgey appeared, The Book of Guilt is the first Aotearoa book to hit 1,000 book sales this year (according to NielsenIQ Bookdata). The Spinoff's books editor Claire Mabey gave Chidgey's latest novel a rave: read the review here. New Zealander Wynn-Williams on her time working for Meta. 3 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26) Last year's Booker Prize winner set in space over one day, and the subject of a headline event at the Auckland Writers Festival last weekend. This year's Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction offered one of the most memorable nights in Ockham New Zealand Book Awards lore: Wilkins arrived only just in time to give his acceptance speech after a day of flight delays and other hi-jinks. Read an interview with Wilkins on The Spinoff, here. 5 You Are Here by David Nicholls (Hachette, $28) Absolutely charming story of walking and thinking and romance. 6 When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter (Grove Press, $40) The memoir of a magazine editor. 8 The Emperor Of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Random House, $38) Poet and memoirist Ocean Vuong's long-awaited novel is finally here and has arrived to rave reviews. 'Ocean Vuong's second novel is a 416‑page tour of the edgeland between aspirational fantasy and self-deception. It opens with a long slow pan over the fictional small town of East Gladness, Connecticut, beginning with ghosts that rise 'as mist over the rye across the tracks' and ending on a bridge where the camera finds a young man called Hai –'19, in the midnight of his childhood and a lifetime from first light' – preparing to drown himself. There's an almost lazy richness to the picture: the late afternoon sun, the 'moss so lush between the wooden rail ties that, at a certain angle of thick, verdant light, it looks like algae', the junkyard 'packed with school buses in various stages of amnesia'.' Read the rest of The Guardian's review, here. 9 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia by Phillipe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicholson $40) 'In 38 Londres Street, Philippe Sands blends personal memoir, historical detective work and gripping courtroom drama to probe a secret double story of mass murder, one that reveals a shocking thread that links the horrors of the 1940s with those of our own times.' Sounds like … a lot. 10 Air by John Boyne (Doubleday UK, $35) For those who have been following Boyne's bestselling elements series this is the book that brings them all together.
Scoop
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Catherine Chidgey's The Book Of Guilt Is The First NZ-Published Book To Hit Number 1 This Year
Press Release – NielsenIQ BookData According to NielsenIQ BookData, the leading provider of consumer research and retail sales analysis for the book industry, The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press) is the first New Zealand published book to hit number one overall this year to date with over 1000* copies sold through the New Zealand BookScan panel of retailers, following Chidgey's recent successful appearance at the Auckland Writers Festival, Waituhi o Tāmaki. Number two in this week's chart is The Let Them Theory, by Mel & Sawyer Robbins (Penguin Random House) and The Book of Guilt has now broken its 5-week run at the top of the charts. Catherine Chidgey is no stranger to the New Zealand bestseller charts, appearing a total of 183 times across various positions in the NZ Fiction top 10 (since BookScan began sales tracking back in 2008) for her books, Pet (2023), The Axeman's Carnival (2022), (both Te Herenga Waka University Press), Remote Sympathy, (2020), and The Wish Child (2016) (both Victoria University Press). Chidgey has previously hit number one on the NZ Fiction chart 25 times prior to this latest week across these same four titles and last week, The Book of Guilt went straight to number one on the NZ Fiction chart after only 3 days on sale. This current week marks a new milestone however, with The Book of Guilt coming in at number one overall across all types of book sales (all genres, both NZ-published and international books). Nevena Nikolic, Territory Manager for NZ, said: 'There has been a 206% increase in sales from 2020 to 2024 for Catherine Chidgey's titles proving her star is on the rise in New Zealand in terms of book sales. This latest novel, The Book of Guilt, looks set to break further records based on early sales to-date.' *Source: NielsenIQ BookData New Zealand, BookScan data to week ending 17 May, 2025 About NielsenIQ BookData NielsenIQ BookData offers a comprehensive range of services to the international book industry, supporting the discovery, purchase, distribution, and sales measurement of books. We proudly manage the ISBN and SAN Agencies for the UK & Ireland, providing publishers with a suite of services, from assigning ISBNs to adding metadata to our database, along with promotional tools to help market your book effectively. For booksellers and libraries, we offer access to our database of over 52 million book records for title look-up, enriching websites, and managing internal systems. Our research services deliver retail sales analysis for both print and e-books across 17 territories, complemented by insights from our Books and Consumers Survey, as well as Country and Genre-specific reports. The company is wholly owned by NIQ. For more information, visit:
