Robin Dudding, the author's father, was the greatest New Zealand literary editor of his generation. He nurtured many of our finest writers, while living a determinedly bohemian life in a falling down house surrounded by chickens and long-haired children in 1970s suburbia. Adam Dudding's book relates what it was like growing up in an extremely nonconformist household, his gradual realisation of just how different his family was to most others, and his later realisation that his strange and depressed father was a hugely respected figure in the literary world. It's an extremely funny book, not at all an angry misery memoir, but a very, very honest and deeply moving one. Dudding's research into his father's archives and correspondence has uncovered some real gems, and there are some charming chapters, like 'Sixteen things my father taught me' (including 'If you wash dishes in hot enough water you don't need detergent' and 'Old things are better, even if they're broken'), and 'Some tentative theories as to the cause of the midlife decline of Robin Dudding' (including 'The whole country had turned to shit' and 'Bulldozers').
A terrific book, one of the most enjoyable I've read this year.