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The Axeman's Carnival
Everywhere, the birds: sparrows and skylarks and thrushes, starlings and bellbirds, fantails and pipits � but above them all and louder, the magpies. We are here and this is our tree and we’re staying and it is ours and you need to leave and now.
Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, and this is where his story might have ended. ‘If it keeps me awake,� says Marnie’s husband Rob, a farmer, ‘I’ll have to wring its neck.� But with Tama come new possibilities for the couple’s future. Tama can speak, and his fame is growing. Outside, in the pines, his father warns him of the wickedness wrought by humans. Indoors, Marnie confides in him about her violent marriage. The more Tama sees, the more the animal and the human worlds � and all of the precarity, darkness and hope within them � bleed into one another. Like a stock truck filled with live cargo, the story moves inexorably towards its dramatic conclusion: the annual Axeman’s Carnival.
Part trickster, part surrogate child, part witness, Tama the magpie is the star of this story. Though what he says aloud to humans is often nonsensical (and hilarious with it), the tale he tells us weaves a disturbingly human sense. The Axeman’s Carnival is Catherine Chidgey at her finest � comic, profound, poetic and true.
Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, and this is where his story might have ended. ‘If it keeps me awake,� says Marnie’s husband Rob, a farmer, ‘I’ll have to wring its neck.� But with Tama come new possibilities for the couple’s future. Tama can speak, and his fame is growing. Outside, in the pines, his father warns him of the wickedness wrought by humans. Indoors, Marnie confides in him about her violent marriage. The more Tama sees, the more the animal and the human worlds � and all of the precarity, darkness and hope within them � bleed into one another. Like a stock truck filled with live cargo, the story moves inexorably towards its dramatic conclusion: the annual Axeman’s Carnival.
Part trickster, part surrogate child, part witness, Tama the magpie is the star of this story. Though what he says aloud to humans is often nonsensical (and hilarious with it), the tale he tells us weaves a disturbingly human sense. The Axeman’s Carnival is Catherine Chidgey at her finest � comic, profound, poetic and true.
350 pages, Paperback
First published October 10, 2022
289 people are currently reading
5,197 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Chidgey
18books384followersCatherine Chidgey is a novelist and short story writer whose work has been published to international acclaim. In a Fishbone Church won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and at the Commonwealth Writers� Prize in her region. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Golden Deeds was Time Out’s book of the year, a Notable Book of the Year in The New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. She has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for The Wish Child. Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The Axeman's Carnival won the Acorn at the New Zealand Book Awards - the country's biggest literary prize.
Raised in Wellington, New Zealand, Chidgey was educated at Victoria University and in Berlin, where she held a DAAD scholarship for post-graduate study in German literature. She lives in Cambridge and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
Raised in Wellington, New Zealand, Chidgey was educated at Victoria University and in Berlin, where she held a DAAD scholarship for post-graduate study in German literature. She lives in Cambridge and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 569 reviews
November 10, 2022
Am I about to drop 5-stars (only my third of 2022) on a book with a talking magpie as a narrator?
Yep.
I admit I was dubious. I admire Catherine Chidgey ( author of the excellent Remote Sympathy ) but I have had "experiences" with books narrated by birds before The Lucky Galah and Johnathan Livingston Seagull come to mind. But Tama, our magpie guide, is a canny observer, mimic and mischief maker and I pretty much loved him from the first page.
Set in Central Otago, Marnie and her husband Rob run a struggling sheep farm on Wilderness road. They live in their "yolk-yellow house" that Marnie has dressed up with her handmade cushions but they don't quite disguise the impression of decay. Rob, with his hard "Riverstone eyes" and muscled axeman's physique is struggling to make the farm profitable while training for his tenth "Golden Axe". His temper is short...
Tama enters their lives as a fledgling and quickly learns to mimic speech. Chaos and hilarity ensue. Chidgey does well to build a creeping sense of inevitability about what will happen. Much like Remote Sympathy, this book is dealing with something odious that no one wants to recognise as such. Tama alone seems to sense the danger and with his penchant for mimicry, it seems likely this will get him in trouble.
However, for much of the novel, these darker concerns are pushed to the back of our minds as Tama becomes a viral internet sensation. Followers grow as Marnie takes videos of him dressed as Superman twirling about the clothesline. He obligingly mugs and plays up to the camera - a little feathered influencer.
This is fun, clever, incisive writing, from one of New Zealand's top talents. Chidgey has created something special here with Tama and Marnie, a love story between woman and bird. For some readers this may also reveal a previously unsuspected love for Wood chopping competitions - the Axeman's Carnival scene when it finally comes is worth waiting for.
In my estimation, a must-read New Zealand book of the year.
Yep.
I admit I was dubious. I admire Catherine Chidgey ( author of the excellent Remote Sympathy ) but I have had "experiences" with books narrated by birds before The Lucky Galah and Johnathan Livingston Seagull come to mind. But Tama, our magpie guide, is a canny observer, mimic and mischief maker and I pretty much loved him from the first page.
Set in Central Otago, Marnie and her husband Rob run a struggling sheep farm on Wilderness road. They live in their "yolk-yellow house" that Marnie has dressed up with her handmade cushions but they don't quite disguise the impression of decay. Rob, with his hard "Riverstone eyes" and muscled axeman's physique is struggling to make the farm profitable while training for his tenth "Golden Axe". His temper is short...
Tama enters their lives as a fledgling and quickly learns to mimic speech. Chaos and hilarity ensue. Chidgey does well to build a creeping sense of inevitability about what will happen. Much like Remote Sympathy, this book is dealing with something odious that no one wants to recognise as such. Tama alone seems to sense the danger and with his penchant for mimicry, it seems likely this will get him in trouble.
However, for much of the novel, these darker concerns are pushed to the back of our minds as Tama becomes a viral internet sensation. Followers grow as Marnie takes videos of him dressed as Superman twirling about the clothesline. He obligingly mugs and plays up to the camera - a little feathered influencer.
This is fun, clever, incisive writing, from one of New Zealand's top talents. Chidgey has created something special here with Tama and Marnie, a love story between woman and bird. For some readers this may also reveal a previously unsuspected love for Wood chopping competitions - the Axeman's Carnival scene when it finally comes is worth waiting for.
In my estimation, a must-read New Zealand book of the year.
August 29, 2024
A magpie named Tama, charming, recently engulfed my reading life. Axeman's brought emotions down to the cellular level, but softened it with a relatable psychology. Family drama here is spread out over waters, mountains, sky, stream in cunning, stunning, sometimes absurd, but always tender and piercing ways. New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey possessed me in her last book, , about a peculiar teacher and her pet pupils. She pushed the envelope of teacher’s pet and then incinerated it with comic and tragic deft. In this newest novel, she blazed a new trail and refreshed some common tropes, bequeathing a magpie with human cognition and pov to narrate the events of the story. Tama is a hero, a victim, an inquisitive witness. An orphaned (rejected) magpie. Also a keen sense of humor!
Sheep farmers Marnie and Rob are struggling financially and in other ways that are gradually revealed. Rob is abusive when he drinks, and Marnie suffers and stays. You’ve already read the all-too-familiar themes of Marnie and Rob’s marriage, but not like this! Tama is Marnie’s magpie that she saved from certain death, and now he follows Marnie everywhere. She posts him on Twitter, in funny costumes, like it’s magpie Halloween every day. He soon becomes a Twitter sensation, with enough followers to make him a trail-blazing influencer.
Morally ambiguous PR techies contact and then advise the couple to up their game and make money on everything from coffee cups to underwear with Tama’s picture emblazoned on every item, plus a Tama doll in life-sized form. Folks from all over the world fall in love with Tama, and a few peep out their location and arrive uninvited to take a peek. Comical twists on celebrity and privacy are mixed with some serious issues of domestic abuse. And grief.
Tama speaks in witty code, in stark disclosures and funny, flip, discursive streaks. His mimicking has manifold meanings---and consequences. (Actually, some magpies do chatter as convincingly human!) He can be a melancholy magpie, too. He is whimsical but also empathizes.
Rejected by his family for embracing the human world, Tama is torn between his species and ours. His sadness and alienation from family made me heartsick for his troubles. His mother died via vehicular bird slaughter, and his brothers from the cold. Tama’s ache for his magpie family is palpable.
“And at night the ghosts of my brothers came in the peace and bloody quiet, and the ghost of my mother too, and they sang to me through the glass, their voices the wind in the pine trees, their voices the rain, their voices the swish and gnaw of something underground. And the ghosts of my brothers were only feathers, and the ghost of my mother was only bones. Death by car, they sang. Death by cold.�
Rob is pissed at capitulating his privacy but is also preoccupied with training to win his tenth trophy for the Axeman’s Carnival. When he’s sober, he’s pretty anal and in his own private Idaho. His arms are the strength of many, think about that.
I spent research time on magpies—I’ve always had a secret desire to go birding. I watched them on YouTube and became an overnight enthisiast. They are phenomenal. They got skills! Of course, allow some poetic license for the author. He's an intimate witness to Rob and Marnie’s lives.
Secondary characters, such as Marnie’s sister, Angie, and brother-in-law, are material in interconnected ways. Marnie’s mother is passive aggressive, and provides a key to understanding Marnie’s life choices. Angie is emotionally supportive, but also has her own life agenda with her husband. Chidgey never compromises character for plot, and gives them all a rich nature.
I was swept away by this sleeper novel. It’s a proper pick for literary and mainstream devotees, as the thrilling plot and nuanced characters will keep you flying high from start to finish. Will make my top ten list of 2024.
Sheep farmers Marnie and Rob are struggling financially and in other ways that are gradually revealed. Rob is abusive when he drinks, and Marnie suffers and stays. You’ve already read the all-too-familiar themes of Marnie and Rob’s marriage, but not like this! Tama is Marnie’s magpie that she saved from certain death, and now he follows Marnie everywhere. She posts him on Twitter, in funny costumes, like it’s magpie Halloween every day. He soon becomes a Twitter sensation, with enough followers to make him a trail-blazing influencer.
Morally ambiguous PR techies contact and then advise the couple to up their game and make money on everything from coffee cups to underwear with Tama’s picture emblazoned on every item, plus a Tama doll in life-sized form. Folks from all over the world fall in love with Tama, and a few peep out their location and arrive uninvited to take a peek. Comical twists on celebrity and privacy are mixed with some serious issues of domestic abuse. And grief.
Tama speaks in witty code, in stark disclosures and funny, flip, discursive streaks. His mimicking has manifold meanings---and consequences. (Actually, some magpies do chatter as convincingly human!) He can be a melancholy magpie, too. He is whimsical but also empathizes.
Rejected by his family for embracing the human world, Tama is torn between his species and ours. His sadness and alienation from family made me heartsick for his troubles. His mother died via vehicular bird slaughter, and his brothers from the cold. Tama’s ache for his magpie family is palpable.
“And at night the ghosts of my brothers came in the peace and bloody quiet, and the ghost of my mother too, and they sang to me through the glass, their voices the wind in the pine trees, their voices the rain, their voices the swish and gnaw of something underground. And the ghosts of my brothers were only feathers, and the ghost of my mother was only bones. Death by car, they sang. Death by cold.�
Rob is pissed at capitulating his privacy but is also preoccupied with training to win his tenth trophy for the Axeman’s Carnival. When he’s sober, he’s pretty anal and in his own private Idaho. His arms are the strength of many, think about that.
I spent research time on magpies—I’ve always had a secret desire to go birding. I watched them on YouTube and became an overnight enthisiast. They are phenomenal. They got skills! Of course, allow some poetic license for the author. He's an intimate witness to Rob and Marnie’s lives.
Secondary characters, such as Marnie’s sister, Angie, and brother-in-law, are material in interconnected ways. Marnie’s mother is passive aggressive, and provides a key to understanding Marnie’s life choices. Angie is emotionally supportive, but also has her own life agenda with her husband. Chidgey never compromises character for plot, and gives them all a rich nature.
I was swept away by this sleeper novel. It’s a proper pick for literary and mainstream devotees, as the thrilling plot and nuanced characters will keep you flying high from start to finish. Will make my top ten list of 2024.
September 19, 2024
This may be one of the most satisfying books I can ever recall reading. It was so beautifully-written and wrapped up to perfection! It was intense and gripping. It was light-hearted and laugh-out-loud hilarious. And sometimes it made me incredibly angry, but it absolutely had my heart from the very start. I loved this book completely—especially Tama, of course. Without a doubt, he was the hero of the book and, though it might seem strange that a magpie should be the narrator, I swear, if you read it, it will make sense.
I’m very grateful to have read this unforgettable book. Here’s a brief summary: A day-old magpie chick falls from his nest and is rescued by a farmer’s wife, living on a run-down sheep station on New Zealand’s South Island. Marnie names him Tama (short for Tamagotchi) and nurses him to health, though her husband, Rob—an extremely volatile man—wants nothing to do with it, and threatens to 'wring it's neck'. But Rob is laser-focused on winning his tenth championship woodcutting event at the upcoming Axeman’s Carnival, and spends all his time practising in the woolshed. Soon Tama is healthy and grown, and Marnie reluctantly sets him free. But before long, Tama’s back. He has chosen this human family.
Naturally, there’s a whole lot more to it than that. It’s a tremendously good story, and I highly recommend you read it for yourself. I think you, too, will be blown away by this clever, cheeky bird. You can’t help but love the little trickster!! The story Catherine Chidgey has written around him is the real winner. In 2023, it won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Best Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
I feel a connection to the book because it brought home something I’ve believed all my life� that every bird, every dog, every horse, hippo, elephant, lizard—any living, breathing thing you can name—they’re all different, and every single one of them has a heart and a brain and, without a doubt, each is a unique individual. They’re one-of-a-kind and, without exception, they all deserve to live.
5 '---ٳ---Ի-ɳٱ� stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐�
I’m very grateful to have read this unforgettable book. Here’s a brief summary: A day-old magpie chick falls from his nest and is rescued by a farmer’s wife, living on a run-down sheep station on New Zealand’s South Island. Marnie names him Tama (short for Tamagotchi) and nurses him to health, though her husband, Rob—an extremely volatile man—wants nothing to do with it, and threatens to 'wring it's neck'. But Rob is laser-focused on winning his tenth championship woodcutting event at the upcoming Axeman’s Carnival, and spends all his time practising in the woolshed. Soon Tama is healthy and grown, and Marnie reluctantly sets him free. But before long, Tama’s back. He has chosen this human family.
Naturally, there’s a whole lot more to it than that. It’s a tremendously good story, and I highly recommend you read it for yourself. I think you, too, will be blown away by this clever, cheeky bird. You can’t help but love the little trickster!! The story Catherine Chidgey has written around him is the real winner. In 2023, it won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Best Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
I feel a connection to the book because it brought home something I’ve believed all my life� that every bird, every dog, every horse, hippo, elephant, lizard—any living, breathing thing you can name—they’re all different, and every single one of them has a heart and a brain and, without a doubt, each is a unique individual. They’re one-of-a-kind and, without exception, they all deserve to live.
5 '---ٳ---Ի-ɳٱ� stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐�
February 26, 2024
What a fantastic book. I'm aware it's been out a while so perhaps this is a re-issue. Since Pet was my first experience of Catherine Chidgey's incredible work I was delighted to get this from Netgalley.
The Axeman's Carnival tells the story of Tamagotchi (Tama), a magpie who, having fallen out of his nest, is rescued by Marnie. Marnie falls head over heels in love with the bright and gregarious bird that Tama becomes and when he shows a remarkable talent for voices Marnie puts him online. He's an instant hit, beloved by fans who just want a piece of Tama.
However in the background and smouldering with resentment is Rob, Marnie's husband. He is focused on keeping their station in the black, keeping Marnie to himself and winning his tenth Golden Axe at The Axeman's Carnival. Tama is seriously disrupting his plans and Rob has a very short fuse.
Catherine Chidgey has given us another amazing novel with smouldering tensions that feel ready to explode on every page. I loved Pet. I love this. The characters of Marnie and Rob along with sister, Ange and Marnie's poisonous mother, Barbara are so carefully drawn. The book gives us an all too familiar look at family life on the edge. You know that something will happen, you know it won't be good but when and to whom are the questions that keep you guessing until the end.
I've got to mention Tama who takes the starring role. His mimicry is perfect - Catherine Chidgey simply reins it in so expertly.
Highly recommended. It left me stunned.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Europa Editions for the most welcome advance review copy.
The Axeman's Carnival tells the story of Tamagotchi (Tama), a magpie who, having fallen out of his nest, is rescued by Marnie. Marnie falls head over heels in love with the bright and gregarious bird that Tama becomes and when he shows a remarkable talent for voices Marnie puts him online. He's an instant hit, beloved by fans who just want a piece of Tama.
However in the background and smouldering with resentment is Rob, Marnie's husband. He is focused on keeping their station in the black, keeping Marnie to himself and winning his tenth Golden Axe at The Axeman's Carnival. Tama is seriously disrupting his plans and Rob has a very short fuse.
Catherine Chidgey has given us another amazing novel with smouldering tensions that feel ready to explode on every page. I loved Pet. I love this. The characters of Marnie and Rob along with sister, Ange and Marnie's poisonous mother, Barbara are so carefully drawn. The book gives us an all too familiar look at family life on the edge. You know that something will happen, you know it won't be good but when and to whom are the questions that keep you guessing until the end.
I've got to mention Tama who takes the starring role. His mimicry is perfect - Catherine Chidgey simply reins it in so expertly.
Highly recommended. It left me stunned.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Europa Editions for the most welcome advance review copy.
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January 16, 2023Is The Axeman's Carnival the great New Zealand novel? I know it's not a question we ask but for me - Pākehā New Zealand, child and grandchild and great-grandchild of farmers - maybe it is.
One review I read located The Axeman's Carnival in the canon of literature written from an animal's point of view, which had me puzzled. Watership Down, White Fang, Charlotte's Web, Dick King-Smith's The Sheep-Pig (all books I adored as a kid / teen) and Ernest Thompson Seton's The Biography of a Grizzly (the very first book I remember having an emotional reaction to) are all told in the third person. Try as I might, I cannot think of any other adult novel with an animal first-person narrator other than Anna Sewell's Black Beauty:
The Axeman's Carnival also opens from first memories, first sensations, with Chidgey's incantatory tone sucking you straight into the not-human world:
The pillowed palm belongs to Marnie, wife of Rob, the young farming couple trying to force a living from the ungiving landscape of a Central Otago sheep station. On the block of land next to them is the cherry orchard owned by Marnie's sister Ange, her husband Nick, with their new baby and the sister's acid-tongued mother Barbara.
Marnie raises the fallen chick, who she names Tamagotchi (Tama for short). From a box pierced with airholes in the laundry, Tama graduates to the Marnie and Rob's own empty nest, the vacant nursery that sits potently in the foundering old villa, in their marriage, and in the story that Chidgey unwinds.
Tama lives in both world, absorbing all the language of his human household (song lyrics, Marnie's endearments, farm talk, talkback radio callers, the dialogue from the crime shows Rob watches on the telly to unwind) and listening to his original family too:
While Marnie falls for Tama, for Rob he becomes another target for the seething resentment that lies under his skin at all times. Pressured, Marnie releases Tama back to his family and his father swoops in to reclaim him - There is my son. My son has come back from the dead. He fell from the nest and he did not die. My son is alive. Come to me. Come come come.
So Tama is brought back into the nest: the emptier nest now, his brothers and his mother both gone - death by car, death by cold. His father raises him and his sister, the surviving nestlings, teaches them to stab grubs in the ground, to swipe the sting from a wasp, to smash snails from their shells.
But Tama "belonged and did not belong, and I was bird and not-bird". He gazes down on the yolk-yellow house. And he feels the pull of Marnie, his mother, his only mother, and he returns to her. And from his bird throat he brings forth the first of his human words: her name.
Changeling, foundling, child-narrator, jester: Tama is our eyes and ears and voice throughout The Axeman's Carnival. Two storylines intertwine: Tama's rapidly growing grasp of English and eventual social media stardom, alongside Rob's pursuit of his tenth golden axe at that year's woodchopping competition. These stories are played out across a fraying marriage, the harsh life of farmers, the intensities of living too close to your family and being surrounded by empty space but - for Marnie - having little space or safety of your own. And at the same time, Tama's continued connection to his own family, his dominating and cold-hearted father, his curious and selfish sister.
Although the story is often troubled (Rob is jealous, suspicious, and free with his hands when he's had to much to drink) Chidgey is also frequently hilarious. Tama as narrator reports to us what he sees and hears, without judgement or interpretation, whether that's Barbara's sniping or the adulation of the foreign tourists who start searching out the farm to meet their Twitter crush. It's a truly rollicking story, both High Country gothic and pop-culture parody.
But what I found myself appreciating most about The Axeman's Carnival - perhaps enhanced by reading the book whilst staying in rural Hawkes Bay, in a house on dry hillside under a stand of pines occupied by its own magpie families - was the portrait of farming life, so familiar to my ear even though I've not lived on the farm since I was 18.
The book is a striking and evocative portrait of the pressures and isolation of farming life, and I found myself following Rob in the book with welling of empathy for all those farming men I've ever known. Victim to the weather, to the regulators, to those buggers in the city. Falling meat prices, falling wool prices, threat of drought: Rob is watching his own life play out in the same worn tracks as those of his parents farming the same resistant land, searching for rain, searching for a break on the global markets, the sheer unfairness of busting a gut from before dawn to after dark every day of the year and still living on a knife's edge of liquid cash. The hardness this breeds, the inarticulate resentment of a life that feels so out of your control, the deep responsibility for this bloody piece of land your family worked, and yet the love and the fierce pride also.
There are a couple of set pieces which are pitch perfect to my ear. There's the description of docking season, when lambs' tails are severed with a cauterising iron, rubber bands are applied to testicles to strangulate the blood supply until they drop off (we used bands on the lambs' tails too, and the image of lambs bucking on the ground then spronking off in uneven leaps and bounds, bawling for their mothers, is still so vivid in my mind). Not just the work, but the latent anger at townies and their privileged obliviousness:
And also the descriptions of the work and care of lambing season, where paddocks are patrolled, small hot bodies fished slithering and steaming from their mother's vulvas, prolapsed uteruses pushed back in and secured with plastic anchors, motherless lambs brought home, warmed in front of the fire, fed by hand. In my house they were kept in cardboard boxes or the wood basket, until they were big enough to be moved to the crate in the basement (once home also to a litter of piglets whose murderous mother kept squashing them). Or the creation of more changelings - dead lambs skinned, then the crinkled yellow jackets of their hides tied around the bodies of orphaned lambs, to fool the bereaved ewe through smell and taste to mother them on. (Who wouldn't take a second chance, if they could make themselves believe in it?)
Another set piece comes late in the book, a crowd of men yelling as Ange and Marnie take to the stage to perform in a kind of talent show during the woodchopping competition:
"Show us where the axe hit ya" was a favoured catch-phrase of my teenage years. And yet still, "Nice legs, what time do they open?" made me giggle.
As other reviewers have noted, The Axeman's Carnival sits within New Zealand's tradition of the cinema of unease, that gothic haunting of the settler imagination. It's full of symbol and threat and tension. But the utterly unique voice of Tama, his two-spirit storytelling: this is brilliantly developed and delivered, in a way a film could never make you believe the way Chidgey's writing does. One of the greatest works of storytelling I've read in such a long time, effortless and memorable.
One review I read located The Axeman's Carnival in the canon of literature written from an animal's point of view, which had me puzzled. Watership Down, White Fang, Charlotte's Web, Dick King-Smith's The Sheep-Pig (all books I adored as a kid / teen) and Ernest Thompson Seton's The Biography of a Grizzly (the very first book I remember having an emotional reaction to) are all told in the third person. Try as I might, I cannot think of any other adult novel with an animal first-person narrator other than Anna Sewell's Black Beauty:
The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; at the top of the meadow was a grove of fir trees, and at the bottom a running brook overhung by a steep bank.
While I was young I lived upon my mother's milk, as I could not eat grass. In the daytime I ran by her side, and at night I lay down close by her. When it was hot we used to stand by the pond in the shade of the trees, and when it was cold we had a nice warm shed near the grove.
The Axeman's Carnival also opens from first memories, first sensations, with Chidgey's incantatory tone sucking you straight into the not-human world:
A long long time ago, when I was little chick, not even a chick but a pink and naked thing, a scar a scrap a scrape fallen on roots, and wriggling, when I was catching my death and all I knew of sky was the feel of feathers above me, the belly of black as warm as a cloud above me, when I was blind, my eyes unsprouted seeds, my eyes dots of gravel stuck under skin, when I was a beak opening for nothing nothing nothing she lifted me into her pillowed palm.
The pillowed palm belongs to Marnie, wife of Rob, the young farming couple trying to force a living from the ungiving landscape of a Central Otago sheep station. On the block of land next to them is the cherry orchard owned by Marnie's sister Ange, her husband Nick, with their new baby and the sister's acid-tongued mother Barbara.
Marnie raises the fallen chick, who she names Tamagotchi (Tama for short). From a box pierced with airholes in the laundry, Tama graduates to the Marnie and Rob's own empty nest, the vacant nursery that sits potently in the foundering old villa, in their marriage, and in the story that Chidgey unwinds.
Tama lives in both world, absorbing all the language of his human household (song lyrics, Marnie's endearments, farm talk, talkback radio callers, the dialogue from the crime shows Rob watches on the telly to unwind) and listening to his original family too:
From the windowsill I could see my flock in the distance, and hear them, and I tried to tell which birds were my mother and father: little bits of black and white, dark and light, too far away. One day I thought I heard them singing for their lost chick, but every family lost half their chicks, and all parents sang for them, and the voices might have been the voices of of someone else's parents.
While Marnie falls for Tama, for Rob he becomes another target for the seething resentment that lies under his skin at all times. Pressured, Marnie releases Tama back to his family and his father swoops in to reclaim him - There is my son. My son has come back from the dead. He fell from the nest and he did not die. My son is alive. Come to me. Come come come.
So Tama is brought back into the nest: the emptier nest now, his brothers and his mother both gone - death by car, death by cold. His father raises him and his sister, the surviving nestlings, teaches them to stab grubs in the ground, to swipe the sting from a wasp, to smash snails from their shells.
I learned how the wild worked: where to take shelter, and what voice the adults used when another flock tried to invade. I learned to behave. I learned my place. I learned to leap octaves and to sing two notes at once.
But Tama "belonged and did not belong, and I was bird and not-bird". He gazes down on the yolk-yellow house. And he feels the pull of Marnie, his mother, his only mother, and he returns to her. And from his bird throat he brings forth the first of his human words: her name.
Changeling, foundling, child-narrator, jester: Tama is our eyes and ears and voice throughout The Axeman's Carnival. Two storylines intertwine: Tama's rapidly growing grasp of English and eventual social media stardom, alongside Rob's pursuit of his tenth golden axe at that year's woodchopping competition. These stories are played out across a fraying marriage, the harsh life of farmers, the intensities of living too close to your family and being surrounded by empty space but - for Marnie - having little space or safety of your own. And at the same time, Tama's continued connection to his own family, his dominating and cold-hearted father, his curious and selfish sister.
Although the story is often troubled (Rob is jealous, suspicious, and free with his hands when he's had to much to drink) Chidgey is also frequently hilarious. Tama as narrator reports to us what he sees and hears, without judgement or interpretation, whether that's Barbara's sniping or the adulation of the foreign tourists who start searching out the farm to meet their Twitter crush. It's a truly rollicking story, both High Country gothic and pop-culture parody.
But what I found myself appreciating most about The Axeman's Carnival - perhaps enhanced by reading the book whilst staying in rural Hawkes Bay, in a house on dry hillside under a stand of pines occupied by its own magpie families - was the portrait of farming life, so familiar to my ear even though I've not lived on the farm since I was 18.
The book is a striking and evocative portrait of the pressures and isolation of farming life, and I found myself following Rob in the book with welling of empathy for all those farming men I've ever known. Victim to the weather, to the regulators, to those buggers in the city. Falling meat prices, falling wool prices, threat of drought: Rob is watching his own life play out in the same worn tracks as those of his parents farming the same resistant land, searching for rain, searching for a break on the global markets, the sheer unfairness of busting a gut from before dawn to after dark every day of the year and still living on a knife's edge of liquid cash. The hardness this breeds, the inarticulate resentment of a life that feels so out of your control, the deep responsibility for this bloody piece of land your family worked, and yet the love and the fierce pride also.
There are a couple of set pieces which are pitch perfect to my ear. There's the description of docking season, when lambs' tails are severed with a cauterising iron, rubber bands are applied to testicles to strangulate the blood supply until they drop off (we used bands on the lambs' tails too, and the image of lambs bucking on the ground then spronking off in uneven leaps and bounds, bawling for their mothers, is still so vivid in my mind). Not just the work, but the latent anger at townies and their privileged obliviousness:
"And now the overseas supermarkets are complaining about the meat."
"What's wrong with it?" said Ange.
"Nothing," said Rob. "Nothing's wrong with it. But their customers have decided they're a bit upset about tailing."
"They don't want to buy meat from docked animals," said Marnie.
"Why on earth not?" said Barbara.
"Apparently it's cruel," said Rob. "Apparently we're monsters. They'd prefer to eat lambs slaughtered with their tails still attached."
Barbara laughed. "Ludicrous!"
"There's a lot of pressure," said Marnie.
"well," said Nick, "it's important to listen to the voice of the consumer."
"You know what's cruel?" said Rob. "Leaving a lamb with a tail so long it gets caked in shit, and then the blowflies come and lay their eggs, and then the maggots hatch and eat the animal alive."
Barbara shuddered, pushed away her bread roll.
"Sorry," he said. "It gets me worked up."
And also the descriptions of the work and care of lambing season, where paddocks are patrolled, small hot bodies fished slithering and steaming from their mother's vulvas, prolapsed uteruses pushed back in and secured with plastic anchors, motherless lambs brought home, warmed in front of the fire, fed by hand. In my house they were kept in cardboard boxes or the wood basket, until they were big enough to be moved to the crate in the basement (once home also to a litter of piglets whose murderous mother kept squashing them). Or the creation of more changelings - dead lambs skinned, then the crinkled yellow jackets of their hides tied around the bodies of orphaned lambs, to fool the bereaved ewe through smell and taste to mother them on. (Who wouldn't take a second chance, if they could make themselves believe in it?)
Another set piece comes late in the book, a crowd of men yelling as Ange and Marnie take to the stage to perform in a kind of talent show during the woodchopping competition:
But the men were in full voice now, calling, carolling. 'I like your dresses - they'd look awesome on my bedroom floor. Wanna see my baby elephant? Wanna see my hairy canary? I've got some wood for you, girls. Hey! I said I've got some wood for you! My name's Justin - remember that so you can scream it later. How do you like your meat? Hey girls! Girls! What's your favourite - standing or underhand? Nice legs, what time do they open? Are you free tonight, or will it cost me?
"Show us where the axe hit ya" was a favoured catch-phrase of my teenage years. And yet still, "Nice legs, what time do they open?" made me giggle.
As other reviewers have noted, The Axeman's Carnival sits within New Zealand's tradition of the cinema of unease, that gothic haunting of the settler imagination. It's full of symbol and threat and tension. But the utterly unique voice of Tama, his two-spirit storytelling: this is brilliantly developed and delivered, in a way a film could never make you believe the way Chidgey's writing does. One of the greatest works of storytelling I've read in such a long time, effortless and memorable.
Read
January 5, 2025I've never seen a magpie, the North American version mainly residing in the West, I've just learned. From the same online tutorial I've learned that magpies are thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures. A magpie is one of the few nonmammalian species able to recognize itself in a mirror test and magpies have shown the ability to make and use tools, imitate human speech, grieve, play games, and work in teams.
All these parlor tricks are at play in this novel, narrated by a magpie named Tama. Tama falls out of his nest as a chick and is rescued by Marnie, who treats him much as a pet. Marnie's husband, Rob, is none too pleased. That's all of the plot you'll get from me.
Tama is a wonderful creation. He's an observant soul, which is a very inventive way to examine and relate what the humans are doing. And he's funny. He memorizes everything the humans say, and offers it back, often at choice moments. His relationship with his natural family and the flock are revealing, with lessons meant for the human reader.
This was a fun read, a page-turner. Yet, the human characters were not as well developed as the magpie. Most were from central casting and had a cardboard feel. An exception was Barbara, Marnie's Mum. She was often unlikable, but that made her interesting.
The story itself, also, had a made-for-tv feel. That said, I really liked the bird.
All these parlor tricks are at play in this novel, narrated by a magpie named Tama. Tama falls out of his nest as a chick and is rescued by Marnie, who treats him much as a pet. Marnie's husband, Rob, is none too pleased. That's all of the plot you'll get from me.
Tama is a wonderful creation. He's an observant soul, which is a very inventive way to examine and relate what the humans are doing. And he's funny. He memorizes everything the humans say, and offers it back, often at choice moments. His relationship with his natural family and the flock are revealing, with lessons meant for the human reader.
This was a fun read, a page-turner. Yet, the human characters were not as well developed as the magpie. Most were from central casting and had a cardboard feel. An exception was Barbara, Marnie's Mum. She was often unlikable, but that made her interesting.
The story itself, also, had a made-for-tv feel. That said, I really liked the bird.
March 1, 2024
This was so good! It has a serious subject matter, but it’s also funny, adorable and the talking magpie Tama is absolutely wonderful. I had my doubts about a the POV beforehand, but there was no need, it works very well.
Many thanks to Europa Editions and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
Many thanks to Europa Editions and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
February 11, 2023
I was primed to like this by just about everyone on ŷ, using all their superlatives about it. Plus I'm all for supporting Kiwi fiction. But I'm afraid I definitely didn't agree with the ŷ consensus.
Chidgey can write extremely beautifully and sensitively. I found her writing was at its best about nature, which thankfully there was quite a lot of (as you'd expect for a book narrated by a magpie, Tama). So much of the stuff about the merchandising and Twitter fame was tedious and served no narrative purpose (Marnie doesn't appear to love Tama or her husband less for it, there's only a little on the ethics of animal exploitation). This should have been a really minor subplot at most.
People describe it as funny but it relies WAY too much on the humour of Tama the magpie repeating something inappropriate/incongruous/outrageous. I mean, it's funny for a bit but not for 350 pages.
The magpie's-eye-view was useful for throwing into contrast aspects of our society, in this case domestic violence. I thought more could have been made of this. It was almost always immediately clear what object or phenomenon our narrator was describing.
Plus I just thought Tama was a little emotionally boring. OK, he's keen for Marnie (his foster mother) to love him, that's sweet. But all his feelings towards other characters are either apprehensive (danger!) or positive cos they have tasty treats. Like, if he's going to be a human bird you may as well make him an interesting human.
Basically I wish Tama was both more fully magpie (other, foreigner to human things) and more fully human (having real emotional interest).
Maybe none of the other characters had much emotional nuance to them. Strict and old-school granny. Comms person only interested in money and talking media gobbeldygook. We only saw a little of what made Marnie's husband abusive. Character development was pretty minimal overall.
Another gripe (cos I may as well get it all out) is how Christians were made into straw men. According to this book everyone who believes in God is either a psycho or an idiot.
No spoilers but the ending just felt a bit like the least worst option. Keen to discuss this with those who thought more of it than me!
Chidgey can write extremely beautifully and sensitively. I found her writing was at its best about nature, which thankfully there was quite a lot of (as you'd expect for a book narrated by a magpie, Tama). So much of the stuff about the merchandising and Twitter fame was tedious and served no narrative purpose (Marnie doesn't appear to love Tama or her husband less for it, there's only a little on the ethics of animal exploitation). This should have been a really minor subplot at most.
People describe it as funny but it relies WAY too much on the humour of Tama the magpie repeating something inappropriate/incongruous/outrageous. I mean, it's funny for a bit but not for 350 pages.
The magpie's-eye-view was useful for throwing into contrast aspects of our society, in this case domestic violence. I thought more could have been made of this. It was almost always immediately clear what object or phenomenon our narrator was describing.
Plus I just thought Tama was a little emotionally boring. OK, he's keen for Marnie (his foster mother) to love him, that's sweet. But all his feelings towards other characters are either apprehensive (danger!) or positive cos they have tasty treats. Like, if he's going to be a human bird you may as well make him an interesting human.
Basically I wish Tama was both more fully magpie (other, foreigner to human things) and more fully human (having real emotional interest).
Maybe none of the other characters had much emotional nuance to them. Strict and old-school granny. Comms person only interested in money and talking media gobbeldygook. We only saw a little of what made Marnie's husband abusive. Character development was pretty minimal overall.
Another gripe (cos I may as well get it all out) is how Christians were made into straw men. According to this book everyone who believes in God is either a psycho or an idiot.
No spoilers but the ending just felt a bit like the least worst option. Keen to discuss this with those who thought more of it than me!
May 23, 2024
4.5 Stars
Set in rural New Zealand, this is a story of a talking magpie, and Marnie, the woman who rescues the magpie, Tama, when it falls from the nest. Tama becomes an international ‘celebrity� when he learns to speak, and Marnie - or technically Tama, begins to obtain somewhat of a celebrity status online. Marnie’s husband becomes more jealous of ‘all these men� he imagines she’s talking to online, and his anger grows, and only cools off a little when he sees how much money she is beginning to make.
There’s a balance to this story, overall, when the story focuses on Marnie and Tama it is generally light with some jealousy of Tama getting more of her affection, until the husband begins to see even this magpie as a reason to abuse her once again.
As this story proceeds, Tama attempts to connection with her magpie family, but she is dismissed since they see her as no longer a part of their family. There are several surprises, some moments of danger, but there are also moments that made me smile, as well.
Pub Date: 13 Aug 2024
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Europa Editions
Set in rural New Zealand, this is a story of a talking magpie, and Marnie, the woman who rescues the magpie, Tama, when it falls from the nest. Tama becomes an international ‘celebrity� when he learns to speak, and Marnie - or technically Tama, begins to obtain somewhat of a celebrity status online. Marnie’s husband becomes more jealous of ‘all these men� he imagines she’s talking to online, and his anger grows, and only cools off a little when he sees how much money she is beginning to make.
There’s a balance to this story, overall, when the story focuses on Marnie and Tama it is generally light with some jealousy of Tama getting more of her affection, until the husband begins to see even this magpie as a reason to abuse her once again.
As this story proceeds, Tama attempts to connection with her magpie family, but she is dismissed since they see her as no longer a part of their family. There are several surprises, some moments of danger, but there are also moments that made me smile, as well.
Pub Date: 13 Aug 2024
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Europa Editions
June 28, 2023
I wanted to read this book,
and I was right to do so.
Deceptively easy to read, Catherine Chidgey's seventh novel is a stunning achievement.
The Axeman's Carnival could have been the bleak story of a farming Otago couple struggling to stay afloat while their relationship deteriorates past the point of no return, but the quirky presence of its narrator makes it a different story.
Marnie rescues a magpie that fell from its nest and raises the chick, which becomes her saviour in more ways that one. It is not just that this magpie can speak and narrates the story in an utterly convincing voice... it is also that its presence changes the dynamic in the couple's relationshipandlifts the curtain to reveal it to the wider world.
Social media is both a villain and a hero in this novel...
Marnie has lost a baby in circumstances not revealed till late in the novel, and in her loneliness and grief she mothers the chick. Its bed is in the nursery, and she surrenders to its every need. Prompted by the jealousy of her husband Rob, she names it Tama as a salute to but soon discovers that its talent for mimicry extends to copying everything it hears. (As she showed so brilliantly in The Beat of the Pendulum (2017), see ) Chidgey depicts the intersection of social media and real life with what happens next... a Tweet with a cute photo and caption leads to a growing horde of followers and suddenly Tama is a social media presence like no other. There are photos of him in all kinds of situations, wearing all kinds of cute costumes and reproducing the funny things he says. 'Don't you dare!' becomes his tag line.
As Tama's fame on social media grows, Marnie's creativity is revealed. She grows Tama's audience with daily stunts and photo opportunities, and with help from an agent, Tama's 'brand' is monetised. The sale of Tama merchandise � mugs, T-shirts, all the usual stuff � becomes full-time work which augments the family income. Marnie is able to give up her casual job in town, but Rob's resentment grows.
Inevitably, there are negatives. Animal activists don't approve of a wild bird being domesticated...
To read the rest of my review please visit
and I was right to do so.
Deceptively easy to read, Catherine Chidgey's seventh novel is a stunning achievement.
The Axeman's Carnival could have been the bleak story of a farming Otago couple struggling to stay afloat while their relationship deteriorates past the point of no return, but the quirky presence of its narrator makes it a different story.
Marnie rescues a magpie that fell from its nest and raises the chick, which becomes her saviour in more ways that one. It is not just that this magpie can speak and narrates the story in an utterly convincing voice... it is also that its presence changes the dynamic in the couple's relationshipandlifts the curtain to reveal it to the wider world.
Social media is both a villain and a hero in this novel...
Marnie has lost a baby in circumstances not revealed till late in the novel, and in her loneliness and grief she mothers the chick. Its bed is in the nursery, and she surrenders to its every need. Prompted by the jealousy of her husband Rob, she names it Tama as a salute to but soon discovers that its talent for mimicry extends to copying everything it hears. (As she showed so brilliantly in The Beat of the Pendulum (2017), see ) Chidgey depicts the intersection of social media and real life with what happens next... a Tweet with a cute photo and caption leads to a growing horde of followers and suddenly Tama is a social media presence like no other. There are photos of him in all kinds of situations, wearing all kinds of cute costumes and reproducing the funny things he says. 'Don't you dare!' becomes his tag line.
As Tama's fame on social media grows, Marnie's creativity is revealed. She grows Tama's audience with daily stunts and photo opportunities, and with help from an agent, Tama's 'brand' is monetised. The sale of Tama merchandise � mugs, T-shirts, all the usual stuff � becomes full-time work which augments the family income. Marnie is able to give up her casual job in town, but Rob's resentment grows.
Inevitably, there are negatives. Animal activists don't approve of a wild bird being domesticated...
To read the rest of my review please visit
March 17, 2023
Oh. Wow. Another masterpiece by Catherine Chidgey. Just brilliant.
April 2, 2024
The trouble with writing reviews of books you’ve absolutely loved is manifold - have I overhyped it? Have I used too many superlatives? Have I used enough superlatives? Have I created an expectation that can never be lived up to? Sometimes you wonder if it would be easier merely to say “just read it�, but then that wouldn’t be fair to Catherine Chidgey, who has knocked it out of the park again with The Axeman’s Carnival, first published in NZ in 2022 and published here this week, hot on the heels of her brilliant novels Pet and Remote Sympathy in the last couple of years (she also has an extensive back catalogue).
Chidgey’s books are all so different to each other but what they share is sharp writing, incisive storytelling, a strong sense of time and place snd brilliantly drawn characters.
I was dubious enough going into The Axeman’s Carnival - a literary thriller about a marriage narrated by a magpie? I need have had no concerns. This was easily one of the smartest, funniest, most compelling books I’ve read this year.
Tama (short for Tamagotchi) is a magpie rescued by Marnie as a fledging when he falls from his nest. Marnie lives with her husband Rob, a volatile, champion woodcutter and struggling sheep farmer in Central Otago, NZ.
Tama shows a talent for imitating human voices and becomes quite the little social media influencer when Marnie begins to post videos online. He bridges the human world and animal world, observing the commonalities and discrepancies, deciphering how to survive in a world where violence can be meted out indiscriminately.
As the town’s annual Axeman’s Carnival approaches, tensions mount between the couple and Tama acts as a foil to Marnie’s husband, but does he have what it takes to protect Marnie?
In a story that is perfectly paced, profound, clever and hilarious at times, The Axeman’s Carnival is that rare beast - a book I can find no fault with. I loved it. 5/5 ⭐️
*The Axeman’s Carnival will be published this Thursday by Europa Editions. Many thanks to the author and the publisher for the arc via Netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.
Chidgey’s books are all so different to each other but what they share is sharp writing, incisive storytelling, a strong sense of time and place snd brilliantly drawn characters.
I was dubious enough going into The Axeman’s Carnival - a literary thriller about a marriage narrated by a magpie? I need have had no concerns. This was easily one of the smartest, funniest, most compelling books I’ve read this year.
Tama (short for Tamagotchi) is a magpie rescued by Marnie as a fledging when he falls from his nest. Marnie lives with her husband Rob, a volatile, champion woodcutter and struggling sheep farmer in Central Otago, NZ.
Tama shows a talent for imitating human voices and becomes quite the little social media influencer when Marnie begins to post videos online. He bridges the human world and animal world, observing the commonalities and discrepancies, deciphering how to survive in a world where violence can be meted out indiscriminately.
As the town’s annual Axeman’s Carnival approaches, tensions mount between the couple and Tama acts as a foil to Marnie’s husband, but does he have what it takes to protect Marnie?
In a story that is perfectly paced, profound, clever and hilarious at times, The Axeman’s Carnival is that rare beast - a book I can find no fault with. I loved it. 5/5 ⭐️
*The Axeman’s Carnival will be published this Thursday by Europa Editions. Many thanks to the author and the publisher for the arc via Netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.
November 26, 2024
If you never read books narrated by animals, pause to reconsider this one. I think the way Chidgey handles Tama could appease even the most adamant anti-anthropomorphizer. Tama has an interesting perspective on human behavior, particularly the troubled marriage he's dropped into. He's a kind of amateur anthropologist who can't shed his magpie frame of reference on humans so he doesn't understand how they think or why they do what they do, but he's a close observer of everything physical and he has a wild animal's instinctive sense of danger. He's an exceptional mimic for a magpie and repeats words and phrases the first time he hears them so he quickly develops an enormous vocabulary, although he doesn't understand what he's saying, of course. But he talks so much that about 40% of the time his words match the situation perfectly, which is often humorous and sometimes dangerous. This is my second book by Chidgey after , which I liked just as much. I can't wait to read what's next.
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January 14, 2025And I belonged and did not belong, and I was bird and not-bird.
A magpie as narrator: and a charming one he is. Observant, funny, fresh, and of course, just a touch naive, which is part of his charm.
And I can see why the author chose this figure: he is an intimate part of the household and therefore can witness the relationship between Marnie and her husband Rob. At the same time the magpie cannot intervene, so that the drama can, must play out to the end. Yes, all very legitimate grounds for choosing an intelligent bird as narrator.
But the charm wore off quite swiftly for me, and then I began to recognize the creaky workings of the plot. Would Marnie really tell the bird out loud how she and Rob got together, and about her wedding, the part-time job she has in town, and who lives next door?
I think not.
Information dump alert.
Rob tells his mother-in-law a story: now I know this is FICTION and the story is there merely to illustrate Rob's character and therefore doesn't need to be TRUE, but this is a story that Rob has great gusto in telling, not for the first time no doubt? Has nobody, ever, in all those tellings questioned whether it is possible to drag and carry a huge log to the edge of a sink-hole WITHOUT NOTICING THAT THERE IS SOMETHING ATTACHED TO IT?
At one point Marnie does attempt to drive away with Tama the magpie ranging loose in the car. This does not end well, as anyone who has had any experience of animals inside cars would have been able to predict. So she gives up and returns home. But strange to say, right at the end, Marnie DOES remember a pet carrier that was there for the old cat Snowy, and uses it. Of course she had to have amnesia earlier on in the book, otherwise it would have been very much shorter and very much less dramatic.
Fun, for a while.
A magpie as narrator: and a charming one he is. Observant, funny, fresh, and of course, just a touch naive, which is part of his charm.
And I can see why the author chose this figure: he is an intimate part of the household and therefore can witness the relationship between Marnie and her husband Rob. At the same time the magpie cannot intervene, so that the drama can, must play out to the end. Yes, all very legitimate grounds for choosing an intelligent bird as narrator.
But the charm wore off quite swiftly for me, and then I began to recognize the creaky workings of the plot. Would Marnie really tell the bird out loud how she and Rob got together, and about her wedding, the part-time job she has in town, and who lives next door?
I think not.
Information dump alert.
Rob tells his mother-in-law a story: now I know this is FICTION and the story is there merely to illustrate Rob's character and therefore doesn't need to be TRUE, but this is a story that Rob has great gusto in telling, not for the first time no doubt? Has nobody, ever, in all those tellings questioned whether it is possible to drag and carry a huge log to the edge of a sink-hole WITHOUT NOTICING THAT THERE IS SOMETHING ATTACHED TO IT?
At one point Marnie does attempt to drive away with Tama the magpie ranging loose in the car. This does not end well, as anyone who has had any experience of animals inside cars would have been able to predict. So she gives up and returns home. But strange to say, right at the end, Marnie DOES remember a pet carrier that was there for the old cat Snowy, and uses it. Of course she had to have amnesia earlier on in the book, otherwise it would have been very much shorter and very much less dramatic.
Fun, for a while.
January 19, 2024
A domestic violence story set on a sheep station on the South Island of New Zealand. What makes this one different is that it’s narrated by a magpie, a magpie named Tama that has been raised by hand after falling from the nest and mimics human speech leading to a large vocabulary. The farm is struggling and Rob is one of those men who takes his problems out on his wife. Marnie makes excuses for him and spends much of her time turning Tama into an Internet sensation, and eventually a money spinner. There’s humour in the many interjections made by Tama into all sorts of conversations.
Unfortunately this didn’t really work for me, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief that this is a wild animal narrating. There were far too many things that it couldn’t possibly understand. I think it would’ve worked better if the magpie narration was just for shorter portions of the book (an odd chapter here and there maybe). The story builds to quite an horrific ending after a wood chopping contest and this was probably the best part of the book. I’m disappointed as the last book I read by this author () I thought was brilliant and there are many five star reviews for this one.
Unfortunately this didn’t really work for me, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief that this is a wild animal narrating. There were far too many things that it couldn’t possibly understand. I think it would’ve worked better if the magpie narration was just for shorter portions of the book (an odd chapter here and there maybe). The story builds to quite an horrific ending after a wood chopping contest and this was probably the best part of the book. I’m disappointed as the last book I read by this author () I thought was brilliant and there are many five star reviews for this one.
August 18, 2024
This is not the first time Catherine Chidgey delves into the unnerving anxieties and self-deceit that stem from being a bystander. In Remote Sympathy, her narrative is told in retrospect after the freeing of a Nazi Labor camp from the camp administrator and his wife. In Pet, a motherless 12-year-old girl falls under the spell of a manipulative and disturbed teacher.
Both books were superb. But The Axeman’s Carnival falls into a class onto itself. The novel is relayed by a talking magpie in rural New Zealand. I didn’t believe this conceit could hold itself through over 300 pages upon picking it up. How could any author tell a gripping and unsettling story through the consciousness of a bird?
The answer is, “Very well, thank you.� Tama is a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, who is grieving a failed pregnancy. She and her husband, Rob, a hill country sheep farmer with a violent streak, live a remote life and are drowning in debt. He is focused on winning the wood-chopping competition; she yearns for a little someone to nurture.
The magpie, Tama, opens up new doors. Tama is brilliant, quickly learning how to mimic human phrases that sometimes make sense and are occasionally strung-together words he picks up from the crime shows that Rob watches. Rob is none too happy about a magpie stealing his wife’s focus, but it all goes down a little easier when he realizes the bird can be used to attract online viral followers and make money.
In the hands of a lesser writer, this would be an interesting fable about nature and nurture � the families we’re born into and the families we adopt as our own. But The Axeman’s Carnival goes much further. It’s about staying true to oneself while trusting one’s instincts and separating from one’s family of origin while still honoring and caring for that family. It’s about depersonalization through the desperate seeking of Internet sensationalism and losing our authenticity in the process.
At times comic, at other times poignant, The Axeman’s Carnival explores what it really means to be strong through Tama’s unique voice and antics. There wasn’t one second that I wasn’t thoroughly absorbed. For me, this is a Top Ten of 2024.
Both books were superb. But The Axeman’s Carnival falls into a class onto itself. The novel is relayed by a talking magpie in rural New Zealand. I didn’t believe this conceit could hold itself through over 300 pages upon picking it up. How could any author tell a gripping and unsettling story through the consciousness of a bird?
The answer is, “Very well, thank you.� Tama is a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, who is grieving a failed pregnancy. She and her husband, Rob, a hill country sheep farmer with a violent streak, live a remote life and are drowning in debt. He is focused on winning the wood-chopping competition; she yearns for a little someone to nurture.
The magpie, Tama, opens up new doors. Tama is brilliant, quickly learning how to mimic human phrases that sometimes make sense and are occasionally strung-together words he picks up from the crime shows that Rob watches. Rob is none too happy about a magpie stealing his wife’s focus, but it all goes down a little easier when he realizes the bird can be used to attract online viral followers and make money.
In the hands of a lesser writer, this would be an interesting fable about nature and nurture � the families we’re born into and the families we adopt as our own. But The Axeman’s Carnival goes much further. It’s about staying true to oneself while trusting one’s instincts and separating from one’s family of origin while still honoring and caring for that family. It’s about depersonalization through the desperate seeking of Internet sensationalism and losing our authenticity in the process.
At times comic, at other times poignant, The Axeman’s Carnival explores what it really means to be strong through Tama’s unique voice and antics. There wasn’t one second that I wasn’t thoroughly absorbed. For me, this is a Top Ten of 2024.
January 21, 2025
A New Zealand-set novel about domestic violence told in a most original way: in the first person by a magpie named Tama(gotchi), rescued as a tiny hatchling fallen from his nest and hand-raised lovingly by Marnie. The author pulls off a masterful sleight-of-hand by making the story, as narrated by a highly intelligent, very vocal magpie, entirely plausible, even moving, as he is the only witness to the abuse inflicted on his beloved Marnie. A distinct sense of threat hovers over both of them, as Tama is a magpie, one of a breed regarded as sheer pests and killed indiscriminately by the local farmers. In fact, Marnie’s loutish sheep farmer husband is constantly threatening to get rid of Tama, until the bird becomes an unlikely Internet sensation, with hundreds of thousands of followers, and the source of a much-needed income stream. A serious subject leavened by the format, nevertheless managing to include many truths about the situation: that Marnie is too ashamed to tell anyone, that when she does drop a hint to her mother, that hideous woman (God, such a portrait of a truly awful human being passing as normal) defends the abusive husband and essentially blames the victim, that the violence escalates, and so on. Thank goodness for the leavening humour throughout of Tama, who remembers and can repeat almost everything he hears, dropping apposite funny comments on so much of what those around him are saying.
April 10, 2024
The Axeman's Carnival is an unusual novel in that the story is told to us from the point of view of a magpie, Tama. Taken in by Marnie as a young chick and hand reared, Tama continues to live permanently with Marnie and her husband, Rob.
The novel covers some very serious issues, including coercive control and domestic violence, so you may wish to read up on this should these be topics you may struggle to read. Though it can be a tough read in places, I do think Catherine Chidgey really captured how it can feel to be controlled by a partner, and the defensive way in which people who are under such control can act.
Social media is also a big part of the story, covering both the ups and downs of going viral and having your life lived out for the world to see. On this aspect, it is a very timely novel and it was a perfectly timed read for me based on how I have been feeling about social media myself recently.
Catherine Chidgey is a brilliant writer, building the tension to a very climactic end. The Axeman's Carnival is a very unique novel and if you can deal with its themes, then it's a thumbs up from me!
The novel covers some very serious issues, including coercive control and domestic violence, so you may wish to read up on this should these be topics you may struggle to read. Though it can be a tough read in places, I do think Catherine Chidgey really captured how it can feel to be controlled by a partner, and the defensive way in which people who are under such control can act.
Social media is also a big part of the story, covering both the ups and downs of going viral and having your life lived out for the world to see. On this aspect, it is a very timely novel and it was a perfectly timed read for me based on how I have been feeling about social media myself recently.
Catherine Chidgey is a brilliant writer, building the tension to a very climactic end. The Axeman's Carnival is a very unique novel and if you can deal with its themes, then it's a thumbs up from me!
November 27, 2023
I didn't know I could love a magpie like this
May 16, 2023
5+* Book of the Year! Couldn’t put it down, very clever and beautifully written.
September 7, 2024
There are not enough words in the English language to adequately describe how brilliant this novel is. So the only recommendation I have is to read it, and you will know what I mean.
April 21, 2023
Late to the party but wow was I glad to be here. I came into The Axeman’s Carnival a bit dubious. I don’t do well with books that have big hype-trains, and I was deeply sceptical about the magpie narrator. But this novel is every bit as good as every hyped-up review says it is. Chidgey does rural NZ gothic so well here; the narration perfectly creates that sense of creeping unease. It’s a book that has so much to say about heavy things like domestic violence, and the challenges of rural living, but delivers this with the pitch perfect touch of humour. I loved it.
July 5, 2024
Every once in a while, a book comes along and challenges the way in which we tell stories about the human experience. This is such a book.
Tama is a magpie, rescued as a chick by a woman named Marnie, and becomes the sole witness to her abusive marriage.
As he settles into his new home, he no longer belongs to either bird or human world, completely. As such, his experiences are fractured between the two. His understanding of what it is to be human, comes from both the family of magpies that he was born into, and what he is witnessing in Marnie’s life.
I found this to be tender and thought-provoking. I was invested until the very end.
Thank you to Europa for the gifted copy.
Tama is a magpie, rescued as a chick by a woman named Marnie, and becomes the sole witness to her abusive marriage.
As he settles into his new home, he no longer belongs to either bird or human world, completely. As such, his experiences are fractured between the two. His understanding of what it is to be human, comes from both the family of magpies that he was born into, and what he is witnessing in Marnie’s life.
I found this to be tender and thought-provoking. I was invested until the very end.
Thank you to Europa for the gifted copy.
November 25, 2024
The Axeman's Carnival is a darkly captivating read, narrated by Tama, a quirky and insightful magpie. The characters are richly drawn, and the narrative blends humour with a chilling sense of impending doom, hinting at deeper themes of domestic violence. Unpredictable and engaging, this book kept me hooked from start to finish. Highly recommended
February 9, 2025
One might imagine a book with a magpie as its narrator to be whimsical and lighthearted. That certainly isn’t the case with The Axman’s Carnival. There was a bit of whimsy included throughout. But the tough subject matter kept a running line of tension right up to the tragic yet liberating end. This book reminded me that no one really knows what truly happens behind closed doors of another family’s household.
An excellent read. 4.5⭐️s
An excellent read. 4.5⭐️s
January 20, 2025
Tama is just a tiny baby magpie when he is rescued by Marnie, much to her husband’s disgust. But for once Marnie stands up for herself and Tama stays. As he grows he observes and learns. And with his ability to speak he becomes entertaining, intelligent, chatty (sometimes way too chatty) and a very loyal friend to his beloved Marnie.
Yes I was a tiny bit sceptical about an adult’s book narrated by a magpie, wouldn’t you be? Now I think I want every book to be narrated by one! From the first chapter I was hooked. Chidgey’s talent in creating such a unique, believable and enchanting character is second to none. Her writing is exemplary, the plot is perfectly woven through Tama’s observations (this is one bird who doesn’t miss a trick) and she manages to skilfully create a story bursting with conflicting emotions. I’ve held my breath in fear, I’ve smiled in wonderment and I’ve laughed out loud SO many times, my husband has been sick of me cracking up next to him. It takes a very fine writer to be able to combine humour with pathos like this and Chidgey has it in droves.
I heard exceptionally good things about this book before I read it and all I can say is yes it’s all true, believe the hype. I honestly think this could be my favourite book of the year, and I’m only on book 6, it’s THAT good. I can’t recommend it enough, you all need to read it yourself to see what I mean, you can thank me later 🤗
The Axeman’s Carnival is magnificent and spellbinding and funny and tender and you will never, ever meet a greater magpie than Tama. If it wasn’t for my three cats I’d be seriously considering a budgie (next best thing).
I know that Tamar’s immediate response to that would be, ‘DON’T YOU DARE!’🐦⬛🖤🤍🐦⬛
June 18, 2023
"A long long time ago, when I was little chick, not even a chick but a pink and naked thing, a scar a scrap a scrape fallen on roots, and wriggling, when I was catching my death and all I knew of sky was the feel of feathers above me, the belly of black as warm as a cloud above me, when I was blind, my eyes unsprouted seeds, my eyes dots of gravel stuck under skin, when I was a beak opening for nothing nothing nothing she lifted me into her pillowed palm."
Set in Central Otago, we meet Rob and Marnie, struggling sheep farmers. Tama(gotchi), a fledgling magpie, is saved my Marnie, and choses to stay with his new mum. Part trickster, part surrogate child, part witness, Tama the magpie is the star of this story, as he learns to speak the language of the "colonisers" he opens doors for Marnie and Rob on social media. Tama, with the naïve eye of a child, relays how he views the world around him. There is a lot of frivolity and hilarity, but at the heart of this, is the story of domestic violence. I have seen a number of reviewers say this was fun. Honestly, I think I cried for the first 100 pages, and I had to put the book down for a week. There is certainly fun to be had and there is a slapstick bird napping that has me rolling me eyes, but overall, I found this narrative mostly heart wrenching, and all I could think about was whether Tama would see it to the end of the book.
A cleverly written book by a New Zealand author, this is one to support, but be aware of the DV trigger.
Set in Central Otago, we meet Rob and Marnie, struggling sheep farmers. Tama(gotchi), a fledgling magpie, is saved my Marnie, and choses to stay with his new mum. Part trickster, part surrogate child, part witness, Tama the magpie is the star of this story, as he learns to speak the language of the "colonisers" he opens doors for Marnie and Rob on social media. Tama, with the naïve eye of a child, relays how he views the world around him. There is a lot of frivolity and hilarity, but at the heart of this, is the story of domestic violence. I have seen a number of reviewers say this was fun. Honestly, I think I cried for the first 100 pages, and I had to put the book down for a week. There is certainly fun to be had and there is a slapstick bird napping that has me rolling me eyes, but overall, I found this narrative mostly heart wrenching, and all I could think about was whether Tama would see it to the end of the book.
A cleverly written book by a New Zealand author, this is one to support, but be aware of the DV trigger.
February 5, 2025
4.5 🌟
'A long long time ago, when I was little chick, not even a chick but a pink and naked thing, a scar a scrap a scrape fallen on roots, and wriggling, when I was catching my death and all I knew of sky was the feel of feathers above me, the belly of black as warm as a cloud above me, when I was blind, my eyes unsprouted seeds, my eyes dots of gravel stuck under skin, when I was a beak opening for nothing nothing nothing she lifted me into her pillowed palm.'
'A long long time ago, when I was little chick, not even a chick but a pink and naked thing, a scar a scrap a scrape fallen on roots, and wriggling, when I was catching my death and all I knew of sky was the feel of feathers above me, the belly of black as warm as a cloud above me, when I was blind, my eyes unsprouted seeds, my eyes dots of gravel stuck under skin, when I was a beak opening for nothing nothing nothing she lifted me into her pillowed palm.'
August 18, 2024
This unique novel is by an author who seems to want to prove she can turn her hand to anything. She's so comfortable in her craft that this novel narrated by a magpie, is woven playfully darting between humour and tension effortlessly. The themes of objectification, the influencer culture and Hunan attitudes towards animals she explores here are interestingly handled and come through the plot alone resulting in me as a reader never feeling lectured to or bored by any authorial soapbox. A truly oneoff reading experience.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.
June 26, 2024
Well, it's official - I adore Chidgey.
I don't like abuse stories and this is definitely that - but in Chidgey's hands it works. I picked this book up solely because I read and loved . I didn't know anything about the book, and thus was surprised and I'm going to leave it that way for you.
It's fun, sometimes funny, sometimes brutal ... really well done.
I don't like abuse stories and this is definitely that - but in Chidgey's hands it works. I picked this book up solely because I read and loved . I didn't know anything about the book, and thus was surprised and I'm going to leave it that way for you.
It's fun, sometimes funny, sometimes brutal ... really well done.
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