Robin Hyde — The Godwits Fly
Auckland University Press 1980 Paperback, 236pp. Robin Hyde's wistful and engaging novel, first published in 1938, has now become a New Zealand classic. Strongly autobiographical, it vividly conveys the intensely felt worlds of the adolescent - love, poetry and England - and the enthralling but sometimes painful experience of growing up female; and its picture of family life in early-twentieth-century Wellington, in all its physical details, emotional tensions, muddle and variety, lingers in the mind. Owner's Name inside. Some foxing; cover a little worn; duplicate misprint page stapled in. Good.