TY - BOOK AU - Grace, Patricia, TI - Small holes in the silence: short stories SN - 9780143020998 AV - PR9639.3.G7 S63 2006 U1 - NZ823.2 22 PY - 2006/// CY - Auckland, N.Z. PB - Penguin Books KW - Short stories KW - Maori (New Zealand people) KW - Fiction KW - Pakiwaitara KW - reo KW - Paenga korero KW - Tāngata KW - Short stories, New Zealand N1 - Busy lines -- Side street -- Stepping out -- Doll woman -- Toasted sandwich -- Eben -- Until we meet again -- Love story -- Stranger danger -- The kiss -- Curlytop and ponytail -- Moon story -- Headlights -- To Russia with love -- Four corners -- Wendel -- Stealing Mark -- Tommy -- Mannners Street blues -- Flash story -- Pa wars N2 - The feast of stories is varied - urban, rural, New Zealand, overseas, tribal, contemporary. In Busy Lines, an elderly woman, whose husband has died, gathers firewood on the beach while the appliances in her house fall to bits one by one. In Love Story, Willie falls in love with a statue. In Stepping Out, Great-grandmother reveals how she chose her husband-to-be, both of them. In Moon Story, Rona curses the Moon. In Pa Wars, Petina tells her old school friend Raycharles that she's looking for a father for her baby. The thread that runs through all the stories, though, is Grace's huge sympathy for the underdog and the perspective of the outsider. The world she depicts is often a stark and unsentimental place, in which people struggle against ageing, rejection, violence and betrayal ER -