Chappy

Chappy starts with the story of a young man who can’t seem to get his life together until he is reconnected with his Maori culture. Twenty-one year old Daniel has lived a privileged life in Switzerland but after crashing his car he decides to pull out of his university studies. His mother
sends him home to New Zealand to stay with Oriwia his Maori grandmother who lives in a small rural community. Intent on finding out more about his roots he starts to research the life of Chappy, his deceased Japanese grandfather and to record his story.

This proves to be no easy task as Chappy was a man of few words and remained an enigma to his wife Oriwia all his life. But with the help of both his grandmother and his uncle Aki he manages to unravel what turns out to be a touching although at times tortuous love story.

In the 1930s, as a young Japanese man, Chappy had been forced to enlist in the army. Appalled by the carnage inflicted by Japanese troops in China he decided he wanted no part of it and tried to commit suicide by running into a burning building. But he survived and was shipped off to a Japanese hospital. Fearful of being sent back to the war zone he ran away but was robbed of all
his money.

In desperation he jumped on board a ship and arrived in New Zealand as a stowaway where to his good luck he was rescued by Aki and taken home to his whanau. Without knowing anything of his background they welcomed this emaciated stranger and nursed him back to health. One thing led to another and before too long and with the approval of her extended family, he married Oriwia.

The years passed against a backdrop of World War Two. Then, with the bombing of Pearl Harbour anti-Japanese sentiment changed everything and Chappy made a big decision to save his family from harm which led to new twists and turns in this family saga.

Over the years Aki the sailor also continued to go ashore in Hawaii and the connections he formed there with a Hawaiian family added more strands to the story.

This is Patricia Grace’s first novel in ten years. As in her previous books she opens our eyes to how life is lived in rural Maori communities, a way of life she is familiar with. She lives in Plimmerton on ancestral land close to her home marae in Hongoeka Bay. But in Chappy she has cast her net more
widely to also include aspects of Japanese and Hawaiian culture.

Patricia Grace is a consummate story teller. I soon became immersed in the story of Chappy and found it hard to put down.

Title: Chappy

Author: Patricia Grace Imprint: Penguin RRP $38.00