Admissions

In this collection of short stories, eight women share their experiences of life in a public hospital in southern Aotearoa New Zealand.  These are fictional tales of doctors, nurses, cooks and cleaners, who have devoted their lives to caring.  Working at the heart of clinical medicine, they keep a struggling institution operating, while navigating the highs and lows of their own supposedly ordinary lives.   The hospital that connects these women is in a remote city, in a beautiful land, but it could be anywhere, everywhere. 

The linked narratives are much more than descriptions of women at work.  They are intimate confessions of mothers, daughters, friends, lovers, and the relationships that shape their lives.  Each unveils the ever-present, ever-changing balance between professional and private worlds.  We plan and predict, yet sometimes we stumble and fall.  Our careful - or haphazard - strategies are disrupted by falling in love; by our connections to others; by the birth of our children; by our deepest or most impulsive feelings; by love and loss and grief, and of course ultimately by death.

The storytelling in Admissions is calm, seductive and deceptive: things pop out to disturb when least expected from such everyday voices.   The tales are gripping and convincing - we feel we know these characters already, as lives intersect within the hospital world.  Now there is chance to know them better, hear their stories…..         

Publication date: December 2018

ISBN: 978-0-947493-82-0