The Forgotten Coast

A beautifully written short memoir whose main focus is unpacking a generations-old family story that was never told: that a farm in Taranaki on which the family's generations-long comfortable fortunes rested had been directly taken from the people of Parikaha and given to an ancestor, a member of the Armed Constabulary. Intertwined with an examination of the author's relationship with his father and of his family's proud Catholicism, not only is this book a fine piece of writing but its key focus is also highly pertinent: How Pakeha New Zealanders should wrestle with, and own, their colonial pasts.