Stephanie Johnson — The Shag Incident

Vintage 2002 Paperback, 295pp. The people who committed the act of revenge in 1985 thought it was perfectly executed. Twenty years on the truth is revealed, the truth about the deception that started it all and the seemingly disparate characters involved: Jasper, currently in Sydney's Long Bay Prison; psychiatrist Franca Todisco; New Zealand journalist Richard Brunel visiting Paris with society girlfriend Michaela; Lena now living on Waiheke Island with her girlfriend Scottie; and the young biographer Melody Argyle, working on a life of her intensely private subject, ex-All Black and millionaire block-buster novelist Howard Shag. What happened that connects them? The shag incident is a novel about love, responsibility, guilt and revenge. Comic , savage, and multi-layed, this is a provocative extension to this versatile writer's oeuvre. Darkly satirical and wickedly funny, this novel takes a tilt at a range of contemporary matters, including sexual stereotyping, militant feminism, the machismo of the All Blacks, new age beliefs, psychiatry, womb burial and naming ceremonies. Light foxing. Top 5cm of the first page has been cut out. (ISBN: 9781869415013). Good.