In 2012 the author Kirsty Gunn returned to her birthplace - Wellington, New Zealand - to spend time living in the Randell Cottage as a Randell Fellow. She focuses on Katherine Mansfield 'the writer to whom I have always felt most connected...'

Katherine Mansfield was born and lived in Thorndon, Wellington and the Randell Cottage is not far from her birthplace on Tinakori Road.

Kirsty Gunn's book is arranged around three of Mansfield's Wellington stories: The Voyage, The Doll's House and Sun and Moon. Into this structure she writes of her experience in the house as Randell Fellow, her re-familiarisation with Thorndon and inserts pieces of her own fiction which she writes in response to her experience.

In many ways it is a very philosophical book; the author's long sentences don't always help the reader to understand her thoughts.

Her interpretation of The Voyage was new to me, perhaps a reflection of having read it as a younger person. Overall I found this book aimed at women and understandably it was about women and their response to place. Neither Kirsty Gunn nor Katherine Mansfield seemed to have room for any male figures. Yet Katherine Mansfield's father Harold Beauchamp played a huge part in the family's life in Thorndon. There is no feeling that he or any other male existed.

This is a book to be re-read. It is another in the Bridget Williams series of short books by New Zealand authors. ( )