Tryphena's Summer

For the settlers living on Great Barrier Island, the old scow "Lady of Argyll" is the main link to the city life they have never known or which they have rejected. The scow's captain - a hard-drinking, hard-living man - is a Tryphena man himself, who despises his own kind, but needs their trade. The crew of the "Argyle", tough and resourceful, spend their working hours "racketting around the Gulf week in, week out and wet as a shag most of the time". Farming, fishing, sailing, storekeeping, raising families and sowing wild oats - the people of Tryphena experience triumph and tragedy, humour and pathos, even violence and danger as the sea exerts its primitive force. They resent, yet look forward to, the scow's visits as a break in the monotony of their isolated and insular way of life. This is the story of one summer in the lives of the settlers and sailors, when their destinies meet and mingle. William Owen has taken the Island of Great Barrier in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf and adapted it to set the scene for this full, robust, novel of action, alive with colourful characters. This novel was a runner-up in the Auckland City Centennial Fiction Contest. Cover design is from a painting by J.N.Speer. VG/VG.