BIRNAM WOOD, by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38), is out on February 9.
Around 80 pages into Eleanor Catton’s new novel, Birnam Wood, American tech billionaire Robert Lemoine, who is up to no good and working on ways to camouflage his crimes, grinds through an encounter with a New Zealand talk show host and his wife, who are considering setting up a right-wing media platform. Investing in their project might be one way to conceal his activities, Lemoine thinks. The couple, provincial bores, come out with a string of dull, Kiwi-themed truisms; there’s talk of Godzone, flat whites, being snobby about coffee, golf, Kiwi hospitality.