This is a brutally honest depiction about some key issues faced by Maori communities in New Zealand today. The Heke family lives in government housing, disconnected from much of their traditional Maori lifestyle due to circumstance. Beth Heke is a mother that loves her children, yet fails to fully protect them within her own home due to Jake, her husband's, wild parties and alcoholism. She faces domestic abuse but, despite her best efforts, has trouble escaping Jake's grasp.

The main storyline revolves around a sexual assault.

Spoiler

Grace, Beth's daughter, is raped during one of the parties that takes place in the Heke home. Unable to connect with her mother and discuss how she has been violated, and feeling as if she has no friends she can rely upon to tell her secret, Grace decides to hang herself. Teen suicide is a prevalent problem that is directly tackled in this novel. It is only after Grace's death that Beth is able to stand up for her family. She unites herself with her children against Grace's rapist --which just so happens to be Jake, her own father, who is so drunk that he does not even realize what he has done to his daughter. In the film adaptation, they instead make the rapist a family friend to lessen the blow of the rape. However, the trauma caused by Jake is repulsing yet a needed wakeup for Maori individuals struggling with alcoholism issues.

Beth is able to reclaim her Maori identity and is able to unite her community through her mothering. She inevitably takes other children into her home that need mothering.

There is a wonderful film adaptation of this novel as well (discussed a little bit in the spoiler section). But seriously, don't read the spoilers unless you want to ruin some key moments.

I used this book in my Master's Thesis and I'm absolutely in love with it. It is a tough read because there is a lot of heavy content here. But it is definitely worth the time investment. If had a huge impact on the people of New Zealand (especially once the film was made) because of the heavy content that it deals with. This is just a great example of Maori and Indigenous contemporary literature.