Came A Hot Friday – short book review

This book has everything – heavy drinking, sex, violence, crime and gambling, all packed into one weekend in a couple of small towns in Taranaki. The characters and writing are colorful, to say the least, and there’s some surprisingly evocative passages about the atmospheric countryside, and portraits of minor characters’ lives. Ronald Hugh Morrieson, a musician, carouser and writer, lived his whole life in Hawera and wrote thinly veiled versions of his fellow Hawerans into his books, making him an unpopular member of the community, even to this day. Hawera took its revenge soon after his death by bulldozing the Morrieson family home and putting up a KFC. Came A Hot Friday is recommended, and I will be tracking down RHM’s other books, quite quickly.