The Skinny Louie Book

1992 Farrell, Fiona (b. 1947). The Skinny Louie Book. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin. The author is also known as Fiona Farrell Poole. There is an abridged Talking Books version read by Liddy Holloway. Auckland, New Zealand: Word Pictures, Ltd., [1993]. The first section is her “A Story About Skinny Louie.” New Zealand Listener 127.2620 (May 28, 1990): 96, 101-02 as by Fiona Farrell Poole. Story rpt. in Closing the File: American Express Short Story Award Winners, 1984-89 (Auckland, New Zealand: Godwit Press, 1990), 137-52; in Some Other Country: New Zealand’s Best Short Stories. Ed. Marion McLeod and Bill Manhire. New ed. (Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books, 1992), 278-90; and in The New Zealand Short Story Collection. Ed. Marion McLeod and Bill Manhire. 3^rd ed. (St. Lucia, QLD, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1997), 365-81. ATL, PSt, VUW

The novel begins with New Zealand history of the post-World War II era with some fantastic elements as seen through the eyes of a girl growing up, going to university, getting pregnant, and beginning her career. It extends to an authoritarian dystopian future of age and class divisions brought about by current government policies and deliberately fostered by the government. It ends with a destroyed New Zealand with few survivors. Aotearoa/New Zealand female author.