BABY NO-EYES

By Patricia Grace

Reviewed by Mike Crowl

I read Baby No-Eyes in tandem with Witi Ihimaera's book, The Dream Swimmer, and found the reverberations between the two intriguing, as well as the way in which they increased my understanding of where Maori people are coming from. The two books share many themes: the desire to restore land to its rightful owners, the power of genealogy and family history, a more supernatural view of life than most of us experience, the abuse of children contrasted with the joys of extended family, and even the Spanish Influenza. Both the books cover the same historical period, from the earliest contacts with the pakeha up to the present. Baby No-Eyes is the more compact of the two. Yet sometimes it's more difficult to get into because Grace uses a shorthand approach that can require a second reading before the meaning clicks. In fact a re-reading of the book would reveal some of the things that seemed to be left hanging, I suspect. But it's the most moving book I've read in a long time. After some early chapters I had to sit and take a breather: the grief in the story made it hard to continue. Baby No-Eyes is a weaving of several stories told from four different points of view. Tawera is the brother of the title character; even before he is born his life is strangely affected by a car crash (and its ugly aftermath in a local hospital). He spends an extraordinary childhood being the Eyes for his sister, but to tell you more would spoil some of the mystery. Suffice to say, he, along with other characters have to learn how to exorcise ghosts from the family. Exorcism, in fact, is another theme, highlighted at one point by the unexplained episode of the "man who was a ghost." But note that "ghost" in this book means much more than some spooky, frightening creature. Te Paania, Tawera's mother, has a self-mocking phrase "not bad for a frog" that she finally turns into a positive statement. She goes from being a young Maori girl exiled by her parents from her home town, where they know she can have little future, to a mature woman able to speak out against an immoral and unholy use of human body parts for research. Kuna is the grandmother who has to learn to stop letting what she calls 'goodness' rule her life and family. By goodness she means always doing what she's told even when she knows it isn't necessarily the right thing to do. She is the one who opens up much of the past to view, helping to exorcise the ghosts and providing hope for the newer generations. And lastly, Mahaki, one of Tawera's substitute fathers, who leaves behind ambition in order to take on a role as lawyer to those in need. It is his energy that enables his people to make a stand in the city gardens, in an episode more than reminiscent of the events in Wanganui's Motua Gardens. By the end of the book some evils have been exposed or left behind, and other old things restored. The book focuses again and again on the way in which past events affect the lives of those who come afterwards. Grace may be saying that we need to appreciate just how much the contemporary struggles over land are not merely the result of a Treaty abused and misunderstood, but also the result of damaged lives in the past affecting lives in the present. Grace weaves her politics, her history, and her moral dilemmas skilfully into her story, never allowing them to bog the reader down. It is the strong and subtly drawn characters who keep drawing the reader on. Highly recommended.

Published 1998 by Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd

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