We’re working backwards through reviews I’ve written over the past year and change. This review was written 29 May, 2026.
I just finished reading The Bone People this evening. Since then I’ve had a shower and enjoyed an ice cream sundae, all while turning it over in my mind. The story lingers, and invites consideration. It’s engaging, certainly. It held my attention despite the distraction of this weekend, which is saying something. My sister-in-law just had her first baby. My wife and I have been on hand from induction to birth, plus the days in the hospital that followed. We finally drove them home yesterday, and are now here for the weekend, staying nearby while they adjust to their new roles as parents. I’ve snatched moments here and there to read, in the hospital, at their place, and finally here, in my mother-in-law’s home, where we’re staying.
This is not the ideal way to read this book.
The Bone People tells the story of how three souls intertwine. Kerewin is an artist who can no longer paint, who has isolated herself in her tower in a small town in Aotearoa (that is, New Zealand), fishing and drinking and playing her guitar, alone. One day, she looks up to find a small boy standing in her window – Simon, a strange child who cannot speak, but talks with his hands and his notepad. Despite her ambivalence to his presence, she feeds him, removes a thorn from his foot, and puts him to sleep in her own bed, while using her radiophone to track down his parents. It turns out he has none; the boy is being fostered by a man named Joe Gillayley. Joe and his wife took the boy in some years ago after he was rescued from a shipwreck. Unfortunately, Joe’s wife and their son died of the flu not long after, leaving Joe and Simon alone. Simon was too young at his rescue to even give his own name, and was incapable of communicating anyway, so his origins are a mystery.
Joe comes by the next morning to pick the child up. He and Kerewin get to talking, and bond over their Moari heritage, drinking, and the joy of finding a kindred soul to talk to. Simon, a fey child prone to troublemaking, finds that Kerewin listens to him despite his inability to speak out loud. Quite quickly, the three form an unlikely friendship. But all is not well in the Gillayley household, and between them all, love stands alongside resentment, cruelty, and misunderstanding. What follows is at times tender, at times harrowing.
Woven throughout the story is the Maoritanga of its main characters – that is, their Maoriness, or Maori culture, in which the book is steeped. The characters often speak in the Maori tongue, and there’s a handy glossary in the back of the book that translates all the phrases the characters use. I didn’t discover this glossary until I’d finished the book, which is a pity. Even without it, though, I was able to follow the conversations well enough to understand the story.
The book is beautifully written. The New Zealand landscape, its windswept beaches and desolate bush, are lovingly rendered. There are passages that are distinctly poetic, whether they be snippets of songs, philosophical musings, or the internal thoughts of our characters. The point of view shifts between Kerewin, Joe, and Simon. Sometimes it is immediately apparent who is the focus in a given passage. At other times, it is harder to discern right away. Still, each character’s internal world comes alive on the page, highlighting the deep love they have for one another, and the ways in which misunderstandings and conflicting desires clash.
This is not an easy book. It is as fey and wild as Simon, wandering and dense, with a certain mythic quality, particularly near the end. The characters are deeply flawed, and deeply broken, and the ways in which each one is broken are not always compatible. This leads to tragedy, and you wonder how they will ever recover.
Without giving too much away, the key is twofold – healing, and clarity. Kerewin and Joe must both find ways to mend the wounds in their own souls before they can begin to build meaningful lives and help Simon bear his own traumas. In addition, they must all learn to meet each other where they stand. Communication is a major theme in the story – how the characters understand each other, and the devastation that follows when they can’t. It’s Simon’s primary struggle and the source of most of his rage and misbehavior. When he is listened to, communicated with in earnest instead of talked over and disregarded, he blossoms. As another example, Kerewin is asexual, and until Joe can learn to accept this, there is a shadow of expectations over their relationship that stifles Kerewin and disappoints Joe. Only in seeing one another as they really are, and in accepting what they see, can they all come together as a family.
The novel is richly characterized, complex, and challenging. It demands attention, and a certain acceptance of the unconventional when it comes to storytelling. The mistakes made by the characters are at times damning, and that presents its own challenges. It is, ultimately, a story about healing and forgiveness. I wonder if the story isn’t more forgiving than readers are apt to be. Certainly I have a hard time moving past some of the actions of these characters. In addition, there is a sort of miracle that occurs toward the end of the book that is a little hard for me to swallow. I don’t know if I liked the book, now that I’ve read it. But it was certainly a fascinating journey.
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