The Ship of Dreams

"Notoriously self-contained and private, Kiwi men are often reluctant to talk about their personal feelings and embarrassed at the thought that any private emotional difficulties could be exposed to critical examination. One must go to their imaginative literature to make contact with the reality that lies below the (deceptive) surface." Discussing these issues in this book, Alistair Fox demonstrates the crucial importance of Pakeha and Maori cultural influences on masculine identity in this country - often at the cost of great psychic pain for the men involved. This is the first critical study to investigate at length how masculinity is represented in contemporary New Zealand fiction.