Ellie & the Shadow Man

Description

This is the the story of Ellie Crowther, a spirited and original woman who becomes a painter of distinction. But her canvases continue to be haunted by an elusive presence she thinks of as her shadow man. Told in five parts, each concentrating on a significant period of her life, it ranges from the 1950s when, as a girl, she lived in a YWCA hostel with her mother, to her twenties when she lives on a commune in Nelson, through to middle age, as she raises a son and becomes a painter. Ellie begins her journey into adulthood alert to its disappointments but also discovering her talents and passions. As the story progresses Ellie comes to understand and eventually make peace with her shadow man. Ellie and the Shadow Man moves between the worlds of adolescence and adulthood, between art and domesticity, between suburban Wellington and rural Nelson. The early parts of the novel have been compared to The Hostel Girl, Maurice's novel for teenagers.

Maurice Gee has long been considered one of New Zealand's finest writers. He has written more than thirty books for adults and young adults and has won numerous literary awards, including the UK's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the Wattie Award, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, the New Zealand Fiction Award and the New Zealand Children's Book of the Year Award. In 2003 he received an inaugural New Zealand Icon Award and in 2004 he received a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. Maurice Gee's novels include The Plumb Trilogy, Going West, Prowlers, Live Bodies and The Scornful Moon. He has also written a number of much-loved children's novels, including Under the Mountain, The O Trilogy and The Salt Trilogy. Maurice lives in Nelson, in New Zealand's South Island, with his wife Margareta, and has two daughters and a son.