All Day at the Movies

By: Fiona Kidman

Narrated by: Edwina Wren

Wry, moving, beautifully observed and politically astute, this latest audiobook from one of New Zealand's finest chroniclers pinpoints universal truths through very NZ lives.

Life isn't always like it appears in the movies. In 1952 Irene Sandle takes her young daughter to Motueka. Irene was widowed during the war and is seeking a new start and employment in the tobacco fields. There, she finds the reality of her life far removed from the glamour of the screen.

Can there be romance and happy endings, or will circumstances repeat through the generations? Each subsequent episode in this poignant work follows family secrets and the dynamics of Irene's children. The story doesn't track just their lives but also New Zealand itself as its attitudes and opportunities change - and reverberate - through the decades.

©2016 Fiona Kidman (P)2017 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"In her craft and her storytelling and in her compassionate gutsy tough expression of female experience, she is the best we have." (The New Zealand Listener)
"We cannot talk about writing in New Zealand without acknowledging her." (New Zealand Books)

An absorbing story, the writing made up for the somewhat irritating narrator.

Great saga covering a family's history over a generation, articulating how each member's story is uniquely affected by their childhood. Fiona Kidman is one of the best writers of New Zealand fiction and this work didn’t disappoint, but I was irritated by the way the narrator pronounced New Zealand place names and attempted the dialect, this fine writer deserves better. Incidentally I like this narrator reading other books, just wonder why a New Zealand narrator wasn’t used for this book?