Money’s tight and Henry is lucky to have the job at Mr. Hairston’s grocery store. His parents are both lost in despair following the death of Henry’s older brother, and Henry is glad for the opportunity to feel like he’s helping. Saving to buy a marker for Eddie’s grave, Henry tries to ignore Mr. Hairston’s commentary about the customers. But Henry is shocked when he is told he’s being laid off. That is, unless he agrees to do one thing, one terrible thing.

Eugene is remembering the summer of 1938 in Frenchtown, a time when he began to wonder “what I was doing here on the planet Earth.” Here in vibrant, exquisite detail are his lovely mother, his aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, and especially his beloved, enigmatic father. Here, too, is the world of a mill town: the boys swimming in a brook that is red or purple or green, depending on the dyes dumped that day by the comb shop; the visit of the ice man; and the boys’ trips to the cemetery or the forbidden railroad tracks. And here also is a darker world–the mystery of a girl murdered years before. Robert Cormier’s touching, funny, melancholy chronicle of a vanished world celebrates a son’s connection to his father and human relationships that are timeless.

Who will be the next to die? They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough. More horrors must come...

We're going on a bear hunt. Through the long wavy grass, the thick oozy mud and the swirling, whirling snowstorm - will we find a bear today?

I became aware of the fallibility of the real, that the splendidly detailed objective world of sound and colours, shapes and textures was not completely opaque, and that beneath it could be glimpsed the shimmer of things of great horror and ineffable joy. He is one of New Zealand’s finest regional writers and a master of the short story, but despite his many accolades Owen Marshall continues to write under an assumed name. In this BWB Text Marshall reflects at length on his writing career, on the forces that have shaped him as a writer, on his intense admiration for Janet Frame and on his decision to concentrate on the short story form.