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Fainter, The

Wilkins, Damien

This novel is an emotionally charged comedy of manners; elegant and funny with the power to shake the reader’s feelings. Luke is a young diplomat on his first overseas posting. He’s in New York, preparing for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. His photo has appeared in the New York Times. He has a knack for success. Then he witnesses a crime, the fallout from which threatens everything. His fainting spells return and he finds himself back in New Zealand, living on his sister’s farm, caught up in another difficulty altogether, and involved in the life of a community whose personalities and rules of conduct he finds as bewitching and dizzying as anything experienced at the frontline of international diplomacy. By the end of his time there Luke has been asked the most testing questions about himself. In the second part of the book, these questions return with a new and surprising urgency.

Runner up for the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Fiction category.

Damien Wilkins’ fifth novel further underlines why he has been called ‘one of the few major writers in this country’. It was shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Award. His other books include the New Zealand Book Award-winning The Miserables, and Little Masters, which was named by critic Patrick Evans as ‘the most substantial work of fiction yet produced in this country’. His novel Chemistry won international acclaim.

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