It's an "Oogle Argle Doodle" Winner!
The Axeman's Carnival by Catherine Chidgey
Reviewed by Caroline Harker
2023 winner of the Ockham NZ Book Awards prize for Fiction
The indisputable star of The Axeman’s Carnival is a charming, funny, irascible talking magpie called Tama. The novel, written by Catherine Chidgey and narrated by the magpie, has won this year’s Ockham Prize for Fiction.
Tama falls out of his nest as a fledgling and is found by farmer’s wife Marnie, who has recently suffered a miscarriage and desperately needs something to nurture.
Her life is pretty bleak: the farm isn’t doing well, her husband Rob is stressed and abusive and there isn’t much distraction from the day-to-day tedium of life in the rural backblocks.
Tama becomes a friend to Marnie and, in time, a social media star whose popularity begins to offer Marnie and Rob a potential way out of debt.
Meanwhile he flits between the human world and that of his fellow magpies - offering insightful commentary on both.
As the novel develops we see husband Rob preparing for the annual woodchopping carnival - an event he has won in the past but may not have what it takes to win again.The stakes are getting higher - for him, for Marnie and for Tama.
Catherine Chidgey is a wonderful writer and The Axeman’s Carnival builds to a compelling and satisfying climax.
Chidgey has a good collection of novels to her name and with this one was well placed to win this year's fiction prize.
As more and more New Zealand fiction is being written, the opportunities to read about ourselves and our country are increasing all the time, and I would encourage anyone who enjoys good literature to give kiwi writers a go - there is something so special in reading about our place and our people.
