Paint Your Wife

Starred review from January 15, 2016
In this droll, beguiling tale, the mayor of a depressed New Zealand town finds an unusual way to damp pessimism and rekindle cooled marriages. The town of New Egypt began to empty out in the 1970s when the main business, the NE Paints factory, closed. As the book opens some 20 years later, Mayor Harry Bryant, the first-person narrator, has just returned to New Egypt from a trip abroad in time to oversee the latest effort to keep the town from dying and find "a way to live in a place so riddled with rejection." But his hopes that the first cruise ship ever to dock at New Egypt will lead to more tourist arrivals are sunk when the posh visitors see "how wretched we look" and can't weigh anchor fast enough. As Jones (A History of Silence, 2014, etc.) weaves his meandering tale through flashbacks and detours, it very slowly becomes apparent that the remedy for New Egypt is right there in town. It dates from a 1942 rat infestation and one of the men who didn't go to war, a teacher and artist named Alma. He offered the women left alone his pest-control services if they posed for him. He remained attached to one named Alice (580 sketches) even when her husband returned and, suspecting a dalliance, spent weeks moving a sizable hill by shovel and handcart to prove his love. Alice ended up with yet another man and gave birth to Harry, who used his payoff from NE Paints' closure to buy a junk shop, where he employs Alma. Together they concoct something to revive the town's spirits that shouldn't be spoiled by disclosure and that is both far-fetched and utterly suitable for this quirky rummage tale. Jones' deep affection for his characters and the light, anecdotal touch with which he nudges them away from despair makes for a warm and original entertainment.

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February 1, 2016

Winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writer's Prize, Jones (Mister Pip) is one of New Zealand's most accomplished writers. In celebration, the publisher is reissuing his entire bibliography of work, culminating in this 2004 novel, not previously published here. Set in the small New Zealand coastal town of New Egypt, the story unfolds from the perspective of the town's mayor and thrift shop owner, Harry Bryant. Together with Alma, his coworker and oldest friend, he sifts through the nearby landfill, scavenging the town's remains for saleable goods. Harry juxtaposes this daily ritual with the history of the town just after the war, which had left the community's wives abandoned as most of the men marched off to fight. At that time, Alma began sketching each woman in town. Later, with the town feeling deserted after the closing of the paint factory, Harry commissions Alma to create murals of his drawings on the abandoned storefronts of New Egypt, restoring a sense of grace and timelessness to a discarded populace. VERDICT An entertaining meditation on how humans liberate objects from their primary function and regenerate independence with respect to their past.--Joshua Finnell, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM

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