Prowlers

by Maurice Gee

Prowlers is a picaresque journey through an agile mind and a richly populated memory.

Prowlers is a picaresque journey through an agile mind and a richly populated memory: and through the town of Jessop, whose roots lie back in the early years of the century. Noel's repossession of the past leads to some unexpected discoveries. He sees himself as a prowler at the window; and now and then an occupant reaches out and takes his hand, or tugs him in...

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

Published January 9, 1989

About the author

Maurice Gough Gee was a New Zealand novelist. He was one of New Zealand's most distinguished and prolific authors, having written over thirty novels for adults and children, and having won numerous awards both in New Zealand and overseas, including multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, the Robert Burns Fellowship and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. In 2003 he was recognised as one of New Zealand's greatest living artists across all disciplines by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which presented him with an Icon Award.
Gee's novel Plumb (1978) was described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature to be one of the best novels ever written in New Zealand. He was also well-known for children's and young adult fiction such as Under the Mountain (1979). He won multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and in 2002 he was presented with the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award by the Children's Literature Foundation in recognition of his contributions to children's literature.

Reviews

[Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 maybe?

I enjoyed this on the level of being a bit of a New Zealand gothic. However, Noel Papps has got to be least sympathetic or compelling
Maurice Gee unreliable narrator I’ve read so far. Plenty of his other male leads have thorny and contradictory personalities - Plumb obviously being his masterpiece of that kind, but in his other books I think we get more of how their backgrounds lead them into their warped perspectives.
I did like the occasional encroachment of Kate’s point of view as a counterweight but maybe the book needed more to balance just how much of a misogynistic fossil Noel is?
What’s good here is what’s always good with Maurice, the uneasiness of recollection, how writing about people we know creates and obscures them as much as anything. I always love the sentiment of that.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Tori B · Rating 3 out of 5]

First 20 to 30 pages were really hard going which is where it lost most of the stars. The book really improved after that. It was a touching story. The only other off putting element of the book, was the sexualisation of Kate.