He is a truly contemptible man, but he’s still rendered with some complexity in Duff’s skilful portrayal.

Beth finds herself tensely watching his moods all the time, trying to forestall his violence against her, but chillingly, always accepting that it’s inevitable because he has such a short, erratic fuse and he has no self-restraint at all. Or anyone who he thinks might be questioning his authority, and that often includes Beth and their children. And Jake is offended by anyone who is better off than he is, or is a ‘Chink’ or a Pakeha or anyone who has a car or who strays into his territory which includes the pub where he is the dominant male. Jake has defined himself in a form of toxic masculinity*, one of a perverted ‘warrior’ class of men who use extreme violence on anyone who offends them. Warning: there is strong violence in the film trailer… Beth, a drinker herself, accepts horrific beatings from her drunken tough-guy husband because ‘she loves him’. (You see what I mean? I don’t like describing another culture in this way, but that’s the way the book is written).ĭuff uses different voices in the Heke family to paint the picture. Once Were Warriors pulls no punches about the self-inflicted misery and self-pity of the Maori people on Pine Block, a run-down, squalid government housing estate full of unemployed and unemployable no-hopers.

And since I’m not Maori, and have not yet been to New Zealand and the book depicts a situation now nearly thirty years ago, I feel hesitant about the risk of stereotyping and blaming and of perpetuating assumptions about gender and race. But it is an uncompromisingly negative portrayal of dysfunctional Maori life, a book which comes in for both high praise and also trenchant criticism from some readers at Goodreads. Maori author Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors (1990) won the PEN Best First Book Award, was runner-up in the Goodman Fielder Wattie Award, (the 1968-1993 forerunner to the Ockhams), and was made into an award-winning film in 1994. This review is unquestionably one of the hardest I’ve ever had to write.

Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff