The Bone People (1984) by Keri Hulme was the first New Zealand novel to receive the Booker Prize. It also earned a number of other awards, including the 1984 New Zealand Book Award and the Pegasus Award for Maori Literature. A native of Christchurch, Hulme grew up on the South Island. She comes from a large, diverse, multicultural family of English, Scottish, and Maori descent. After finishing high school, the writer began working as a tobacco picker, and she returned to this occupation after spending two years at university. She attempted writing full time but, despite family support, had to go back to tobacco picking and other odd jobs until 1978, when she became a writer-in-residence at the University of Otago, followed by another residency at the University of Canterbury in 1985. Hulme has published both poetry and prose, as well as nonfiction, occasionally under the pen name Kai Tainui.

Due to its modernist style and nonstandard spelling and word use, The Bone People was initially rejected by several established publishers on the grounds of being difficult to understand. It was finally taken on by a small independent publishing house, Spiral, founded by a feminist collective, among whose members was the well-known Maori leader, writer, and healthcare activist Irihapeti Ramsden. After its publication and international success, the novel sparked some controversy in New Zealand, with a number of critics, such as C.K. Stead, arguing that the author’s Maori identity is not authentic and she should not have received the award for Maori writing. Such statements shed light on the tensions underlying a postcolonial New Zealand society caught between two extremes: essentialization of ethnic identities and cultural appropriation.

The book examines a number of problems impacting the Maori community, such as domestic violence and abuse, alcoholism, social isolation, sexism, and racism. Unlike many other authors writing from a postcolonial standpoint, Hulme depicts a deeply intertwined society whose parts can no longer be separated and must learn to coexist without losing their distinctiveness. This study guide refers to the Penguin Books edition.

Plot Summary

The Bone People is a psychological portrait, as well as a bildungsroman, of three social outcasts who overcome a number of hardships and personal failings to come together and form an unusual family unit. Metaphorically, the novel can also be seen as a blueprint for the disparate parts of New Zealand society to come together and coexist as a united, albeit nonbiological, family.

The book is divided into four main parts, as well as a Prologue and Epilogue. The Prologue offers glimpses from the protagonists’ lives right before the point at which the novel opens. The first, longest section depicts the three protagonists’ first meeting and their interactions, as well as the slow process of growing closer. The main protagonist, Kerewin Holmes, seems to reflect aspects of the writer’s personality, self-identifying as aromantic and asexual and having experience in hard labor. However, the protagonist is an artist rather than a writer. She seeks isolation after suddenly winning the lottery but also becoming estranged from her family, and so she builds a tower on the beach, away from any other people.

Joe Gillayley is a Maori factory worker who has recently lost his wife and infant son and is slowly becoming an alcoholic. Joe’s foster son, Simon, a mute, traumatized child, was found washed upon the beach after a storm three years prior. Both Joe and Kerewin identify as Maori, but while Joe’s appearance conforms to his identity, Kerewin’s is closer to her European, or pakeha, ancestors. Simon is blond and fair-skinned, most likely the descendent of an Irish earl. He is unable to speak after suffering prolonged physical abuse and trauma. Despite her antisocial tendencies, Kerewin is drawn to Simon and Joe, who are just as alienated from and unhappy with their lives and surroundings as she is. The section ends with Kerewin feeling deeply disappointed in Joe after discovering his physical abuse of Simon.

The second part is focused on the three protagonists’ vacation at Kerewin’s family’s bach, or small beach house. Kerewin confronts Joe about his abuse, and they get into a fight at the end of which Kerewin has beat up Joe but suffers from a piercing pain in the stomach. Surprised at Joe’s and Simon’s easy forgiveness of physical hurt, Kerewin finds her connection to Joe somewhat restored. Additionally, during one of their conversations, she learns that he was also abused as a child and was bedridden for several years due to polio. At the end of their vacation, Kerewin requests that Joe not punish Simon physically. The man agrees on the condition that Kerewin shoulders some of the responsibility of rearing the boy. He is also contemplating proposing marriage to her but decides to do it after they are back in town.

In the third part, Kerewin opens up to Joe and confides in him that she is asexual and dislikes physical contact. The man is understanding but does not seem to grasp the true meaning of her confession and continues to see her as a sexual object.

During an evening at the pub when both of them become drunk, Joe misinterprets a song Kerewin sings about Simon and becomes offended. They have a falling out. In the meantime, Simon finds a dead body and becomes deeply upset. He goes to Kerewin seeking comfort, but the artist is upset because of a missing knife she thinks the boy has stolen. Simon lashes out at her, breaking a special guitar, and runs away. He ends up expressing his emotions by vandalizing a number of places in town, prompting the police to visit Joe and tell him the situation is very serious. Joe becomes enraged and beats Simon brutally. In response, the boy stabs him with a glass shard before passing out.

It turns out that Joe has beaten Simon almost to death, and both of them end up in the hospital. The man can no longer hide his abuse, and the authorities become involved. Joe recovers relatively quickly from the stabbing, but the boy remains in a comma for a long time. After he wakes up, it becomes clear he has lost his hearing and his brain has suffered some damage. Joe is sentenced to several months in prison. Kerewin decides to leave the town and burns down most of the tower.

The last part follows the protagonists’ individual travels across New Zealand. After serving his sentence, Joe goes into the wild, suffers a fall, and is saved by an old, wise man who claims to have been waiting precisely for him. It turns out that he is the guardian of a Maori relic, a canoe that contains a holly stone with a piece of the island’s spirit. After visiting the underground lake where the boat remains are hidden, Joe agrees to become the new guardian. However, an earthquake buries the cave entrance. Miraculously, the stone appears outside, waiting for Joe, who takes it and heads back to his hometown. In the meanwhile, Kerewin is fighting an illness, most likely a tumor in her stomach, but as she declines modern medical care, her condition remains undiagnosed. She reaches a mountain cabin where she stays for some time until a visitation from a spirit or a wise person helps her recover. She also heads back to the town, resolved to make amends.

Simon has been placed in foster care but is deeply unhappy. He feels abandoned by both Joe and Kerewin and wants to go home. He keeps running away from the home until one of his attempts is successful and he makes it all the way to the town. However, he arrives too early as neither Joe nor Kerewin are there yet.

The Epilogue offers a happy ending. All three protagonists return to the town. Kerewin rebuilds her home, this time as a welcoming spiral where other people can gather. She adopts Simon so that when Joe comes back, they can become a family, albeit a nontraditional one. Joe contacts Kerewin’s family without her knowledge, and all of them arrive to reconcile. The book ends with a big, loud gathering of Kerewin’s and Joe’s relatives in Kerewin’s new home.