Dunedin

Although her richly lyrical seventh novel lacks a real unifying perspective, Mackay's ( A Bowl of Cherries ) characters and her descriptions of their lives in South-east London are often moving and poetic. The bulk of her story takes place in contemporary London, but Mackay begins and ends it in Dunedin, New Zealand, where, at the turn of the century, Jack Mackenzie was a corrupt minister at a Presbyterian mission. His grandchildren Olive and William now live together in London in a shabby house also called Dunedin. William is unemployed; Olive is depressed and desperate for a child--so desperate that she snatches a baby on the tube. While following the tumultuous relationship between the siblings, Mackay illuminates both the larger moral and social issues that plague London and also the cruelty and pathos beneath the surface of daily life. But Dunedin loses poignancy under the characters' avalanche of angst. As their problems proliferate, the narrative urgency fades and one is left wanting a sparser, deeper work so that other interesting characters like Jay, Minister Mackenzie's bastard son, might live more fully. (Oct.)