Road Markings remarked

I'm sorry to think that Road Markings might have been momentarily eclipsed here by Amigas. It's just received a terrific little review from author Sofka Zinovieff who lives in Greece.

"Beautiful, clever, moving and funny, Michael Jackson’s Road Markings is like the literary version of a 'road movie'. On the surface, it is one man’s journey back to his New Zealand roots – the search to find out where this 'Accidental Anthropologist' (the title of Jackson’s wonderful earlier memoir) came from. But it is also something much deeper – a musing on how far one man has travelled and how unpredictable yet significant is the influence of our origins. With the insights of a lifetime’s work as an academic, anthropologist, poet, and writer, Road Markings is written with intimacy and lyricism. It displays the fascinating insights of someone who has refused to be confined by one discipline and who has a vast knowledge of history, philosophy and literature. The book tells the story of one trip, with visits to old friends and relations, and to places that are half-forgotten, loved or dreaded, but which come back to life in new ways. Ultimately, this personal story is also something much larger; a book that is unafraid to confront the essential subjects of memory, life and death."



I've recently read Sofka's book Red Princess, an absorbing account of her aristocratic grandmother's life, who fled Russia in 1917 for Europe and joined the communists — a life 'turbulent and often scandalous'. Sofka's debut novel is newly released: The House on Paradise Street, set in Athens from its Nazi occupation until current times. Sofka's brief biography makes for entertaining reading in itself.

And don't forget Road Markings — beautiful, clever, moving . . .

Impending delivery

 One of my favourite jobs of editing was when Longacre Press decided to publish The Accidental Anthropologist, a memoir by ethnographer and poet Michael Jackson — New Zealand born but living and teaching at Harvard Divinity School in the US. It was quite a tome and I swam though it many times during the processes of selection, editorial discussion, copy editing and proof-reading.

Michael wrote: '... my lifelong preoccupation with renewal ... lies in the childhood fantasy without which I could not have endured – that another life awaited me elsewhere, or with another, and once reborn in that other world, I would find fulfilment and happiness.' In the book, Michael draws on his own rich experience and research in NZ, Africa, Europe and Australia, on the writings of his own literary heroes, and on his interactions with writers, thinkers and anthropological texts.

He likens his life course to that of a shape shifter, making it apparent that our lives are as various as the bonds we form and the social landscapes through which we move.

I never tired of engaging with the language and ideas made vivid in Michael's lucid prose – he is also an admired poet. Swimming is an apt metaphor — it was a book to be swallowed by, a book to brace and exhilarate the reader.

   ... spellbinding. Literary memoir at its best. Vincent O'Sullivan 

I was thrilled when Michael agreed to publish his new memoir with Rosa Mira Books, work in which he returns to the themes of 'firstness' and renewal; the tidal pull of the past, and the yearning for the elusive.  

Road Markings: An Anthropologist in the Antipodes will be published on Rosa Mira Books on Saturday, NZ time — Friday evening in EST.

I'll write more about it here tomorrow.