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Dante Fog-bookcover

By: Stuart Greenhill

Dante Fog

Pages: 224 Ratings: 5.0
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While other boys celebrated their raging hormones by scragging each other from one end of the sports field to the other, Angus Fog was the solitary figure that watched. While other boys played rugby in winter, tagged and bombed each other at the town pool in summer, he sat and did nothing because in his twelfth year, Angus lost his passion. He subconsciously suppressed the why and when the event took place but the repercussions would significantly impact his life.

Angus works for ten years as a theatre designer and builder in Wellington, New Zealand, before his mother, frustrated with his lack of artistic success, buys him a ticket to London. There he creates an alter-ego from the clique bohemian art world. He changes his appearance and name and becomes the successful artist, Dante Fog.

Dante’s initial subject matter is the beauty in other people’s childhoods. Later, he searches for beauty in the adult world but fails to find it, until he falls in love with Bronagh.

When Dante wakes on the floor of his studio hungover and fearing he may, in a jealous rage, have killed Bronagh or her suspected ‘new lover’ or both of them, the magnitude of that unknown childhood event resurfaces. Dante must return to New Zealand as Angus to uncover what he suppressed all those years ago.

Stuart Greenhill studied English literature and the history of art at Canterbury University. He spent a decade teaching before applying his creative skills to business. This is the first of his novel life that has been put to paper. When Stuart is not writing, he is distilling Gin at his Fenton Street Distillery in the small rural town of Stratford upon the Patea River, New Zealand.

Customer Reviews
5.0
1 reviews
1 reviews
  • Rolland McKellar

    Dante Fog is undoubtedly one of the best New Zealand novels I have read.
    However, the book was not easy to review because of its depth and range, not only of the narrative, but also because the philosophical ideas, themes and perspectives as regards to so many things, including art; it is no surprise to learn that Stuart studied art history at university, as well as English literature.
    In many ways I am reminded of Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s brilliant novels, in that, no matter how many times Dante Fog is read, there is a plethora of nuggets of wisdom and information to be gained. Here’s a small selection of gems: “The loudest cry is the one unheard,” (page 56), “Whatever you run away from will still be there when you get back,” (page 183), and “… some of us are incomplete because we live other people’s expectations of us,” (page 180).
    The novel can be aptly described as biographical fiction. For example, the father figure Charles, whom Angus/Dante does not really know is, in some ways similar to Stuart’s father, who sadly was drowned in a boating accident while Stuart was still a child.
    I highly commend this richly textured novel, which was a challenging read, due to its complexity, but well worth the effort as it is first class.

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