Smoking in Antarctica

 

Smoking in Antarctica by Steve Braunias (2010 Awa Press paperback 306pp)

 

My first experience knowingly reading Steve Braunias was the wonderful “The Man Who Ate Lincoln Road” (2017), a collection of newspaper columns in which he proceeded to eat and review the food from every takeaway joint on the said road. I loved the humour and the down to earth local NZ flavour of it. Since then, I’ve kept tabs on his work (now largely behind a pay-wall at the NZ Herald, unfortunately) and recently have started collecting his previous books from assorted local used booksellers.

“Smoking in Antarctica” was published 11 years ago in 2010 and rather surprisingly seems to still be available new from the publisher (Awa Press). The book basically is a selected collection of the writer’s columns that appeared in the Sunday Star-Times newspaper in the period from 2008 to 2010. The columns have been sorted into sections under headings such as ‘Politics’, ‘This Writer’s Life’, ‘History’, ‘Crime’ and so on.

The tone of the columns ranges from whimsical (when talking about family or grotesque NZ food of the past) to deadly serious and introspective (descriptions of crimes and criminals etc). The writing is top-notch and makes you chuckle, think hard or despair, often within the same piece. He visits Antarctica and seems unimpressed; he tries to write a novel and fails. He waxes lyrical about his new family and then ponders turning a certain nameless age.

You’re not going to find the secrets of the universe in this book but I was impressed by a genuine New Zealand voice that didn’t make me cringe.