The Mannequin Makers

Author(s): Craig Cliff

NZ Fiction

Excitement is rare in the small town of Marumaru, New Zealand. So when a young Maori man arrives on the morning train one day in 1903--announcing the imminent visit of a famous strongman--the entire town turns out to greet him, save one. Colton Kemp, a department store window-dresser, is at home, watching his beloved wife die in premature childbirth. Tormented by grief, he hatches a plan to make his name and thwart his rival, the silent and gifted Carpenter: over the next sixteen years he will raise his newborn twins in secrecy and isolation, to become human mannequins in the world's most lifelike window display.

From this moment of calamity emerges a work of masterful storytelling, at once wildly entertaining and formally ambitious. The novel leaps fearlessly from the epistolary to the castaway narrative to the picaresque, as Kemp's plot goes awry and as he, his children, and the Carpenter converge in the New Zealand hinterland.

The Mannequin Makers is an adventure-filled and thoroughly delightful yarn, introducing Craig Cliff, one of international literature's most promising young talents, to American audiences.

38.00 NZD

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Product Information

Craig Cliff's first short story collection,A Man Melting, won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize Best Craig Cliff's short story collection,A Man Melting, won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize Best First Book, the judges commenting: 'This book is of the moment, and is rightly at home on a global platform. Cliff is a talent to watch and set to take the literary world by storm.' His short stories have been published in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

General Fields

  • : 9780857981622
  • : Random House Australia
  • : Vintage
  • : 0.397
  • : August 2013
  • : 232mm X 154mm X 26mm
  • : Australia
  • : August 2013
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Craig Cliff
  • : Paperback
  • : Aug-13
  • : 823.4
  • : 336