Hell of a Thing
Short stories
Michael Botur
Available via The Sager Group.
“Michael Botur’s writing is a breath of fresh air. Just read him. You’ll see what I mean. This dude can write.”—Alan Duff, MBE, author of Once Were Warriors
Michael Botur’s work grabs you by the throat and won’t let you go. His artful short stories throb with pain, hope, misunderstanding, reconciliation, remorse, and surprise. As one reviewer said, “The authenticity is so scary, you wonder where this man has been and what demons followed him home.”
With his sixth collection of stories, this leading young New Zealand author and journalist finds purchase for the first time with an American publisher. In Hell of a Thing, a cowardly father seeks a more exciting son; two lovers on a posh date dine on self-delusion; and an author turns his back on his past—until the past demands violent closure. We meet artistic terrorists, renegade daughters, an Uber driver from Waziristan, and a crew of casino kids up past their bedtime—everything with a distinctive Kiwi flavor that lends a counter-clockwise swirl to otherwise familiar settings.
There is a ring of authenticity to Botur’s dialogue and physical descriptions, an unvarnished street language punctuated with demotic vocabulary and agitated rhythms, combined in collages of invective, obscenity, and acute observation. Says a reviewer: “It’s as if Mr. Botur hung out at fast-food outlets after midnight—swilling bad coffee, listening to conversations, and jotting observational notes under the garish yellow lighting.”
Michael Botur is the author of four acclaimed short story collections and one collection which hardly anybody read. He has published creative writing in most of New Zealand’s literary journals and has won various prizes for short stories and poems; likewise, he has published journalism in most major newspapers and magazines in that country. He lives in Whangarei with his two kids.
