Come Back to Mona Vale

- Blurb -

Come Back to Mona Vale is a beautifully written, compelling narrative/memoir that sets about unravelling the mysteries and anomalies behind the public history of a wealthy Christchurch business family in the first half of the 20th century. The author-as narrator gradually becomes aware that his family heritage isn' t necessarily the norm, nor what he expected. He realises that family members don' t speak to each other about the most private events. The story unfolds like a crime or detective tale, and also delves into the history of the Canterbury colony, contrasting Christchurch' s public values, aspirations and beauty with its murkier private behaviour. And yet the story is told with a graceful touch and an eye for the vivid, comic and telling detail. Alexander McKinnon' s explorations of his family' s past is the record of a beautiful and grand (yet gradually crumbling) manor interwoven with social history - with a sense of the Gothic, of obsession, and of a tight-knit circle where secrets wreak a terrible climax leading to a form of inter-generational haunting.