This is a familiar genre, a story of a bunch of plucky underdogs against big money developers. It reminds me very much of Patricia Grace’s lovely Potiki, of which I wrote: “This is a simple story of good verses evil, weak versus strong, country v commerce, tangata whenua v greedy imperialists… the imbalance of power … lives threatened by the Dollarman who will bulldoze away their traditional lifestyle and smother their ancestral lands with rather obvious bad things.” Jenny Pattrick’s Sea Change is a similar story set a few miles around the coast in a Paekākāriki-ish village, and a few decades later. There are two main changes. The first is that Grace’s Māori community is replaced by a collection of unrelated randoms: retirees, hippies, dysfunctional families, escapists, hermits. This could be a cliché of small town residents, but those of us who have lived up the coast know the truth behind these depictions. They grow into a sort of ‘found family’ with their power not in their iwi identity but in the coming together of a mixed community. The second difference is the tidal wave.
Sea Change begins with evacuation planning, but quickly takes us back a few months to the immediate aftermath of an earthquake and elderly Lorna climbing onto her roof, soon to be joined by her blind neighbour. And there they stay as two distinct waves come rolling in, smashing over the breakwater and wiping away the shore and lower village. A reminder to all of us to have a grab bag in place. The roads into the village are cut off by landslides at both ends. The chance of immediate government assistance is hampered by the fact that most of the South Island has been devastated by the earthquake and assistance is tied up off-stage down south. After a couple of months without electricity or water and living off dropped supplies, most of the villagers opt to evacuate. Some don’t want to leave their homes. They decide to stay.
Enter the developer, a man who puts razer wire around the water tanks at his holiday house and surreptitiously begins buying up properties abandoned by the managed retreat. Adrian “unrolls his plans for his resort and regards the sweeping lawns, the attractively positioned self-contained units, the stately lodge.” He has money for lawyers and friends in high places who must understand how his plans will enhance the area and benefit the economy. The sticking point is the remaining bunch of residents who refuse to leave.
The residents tick all the diversity boxes and between them manage to rustle up an electrician, a couple of lady plumbers, several builders, a few gardeners and a doctor and some cheerful blokes who bring firewood to those unable to forage for themselves. Those with money contribute what they can. They are resilient. The questions that roll the story along are: Will they survive? Will they be allowed to stay? Will the young boy be sent off to live with his inappropriate mother? And of course, will the plucky community fight off the nasty, rich developer? Will he get his comeuppance?
Like all Jenny Pattrick novels, this is set deep in the New Zealand psyche and tells us a good story about ourselves. I found it a very reassuring read as various metaphorical tsunamis line up on our horizons. I read it in a couple of sittings, put it down, had a cup of tea and thought that it was exactly what I needed.
Cristina Sanders' blog 