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Title: The Uncle's Story

Author: Witi Ihimaera

Narrator: George Henare

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-07-14

Publisher: Penguin Books NZ

Ratings: 1 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Michael Mahana's personal disclosure to his parents leads to the uncovering of another family secret about his uncle, Sam, who had fought in the Vietnam War. Now, armed with his uncle's diary, Michael goes searching for the truth about his uncle, about the secret the Mahana family has kept hidden for over thirty years, and what happened to Sam.

Set in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam and in present-day New Zealand and North America, Witi Ihimaera's dramatic novel combines the superb story-telling of Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies with the unflinching realism of Nights in the Gardens of Spain. A powerful love story, it courageously confronts Maori attitudes to sexuality and masculinity and contains some of Ihimaera's most passionate writing to date.

Members Reviews:

To state that "The Uncle's Story" is merely a love story between a Maori and an American soldier during ...

To state that "The Uncle's Story" is merely a love story between a Maori and an American soldier during the Vietnam War would be limiting its breadth. It is a novel with many subplots, which have been skillfully threaded by Witi Ihimaera.

Sam Mahana and his nephew, Michael Mahana, are both Maori and gay, but is there any room for a man with these two identities in his tribe? Sam meets Cliff Harper, an American soldier, during the Vietnam War. They fall in love, but do they have a future together? Decades later, Michael does not know anything about the existence of this uncle until he decides it's time to come out to his parents.

Both Sam and Michael's stories are to be sipped and savoured slowly. At least, this is how I read this novel, for, more than once, I found myself not wanting to go any further and wishing to reflect on their lives. We are social beings, and society sets expectations upon us, but what about our own? If we don't meet them, we are immediately labeled as selfish, but isn't society selfish in their expectations of us?

This is also a book that deals with topics such as white over indigenous, male over female and straight over gay domination within modern society, both in the past and in the present. However, above all, "The Uncle's Story" is a love story between two human beings, regardless of their gender and ethnicity.

"The Uncle's Story" and "Nights in the Gardens of Spain", also by Witi Ihimaera, have become two of my all time favorite novels. They were both a journey of introspection. However, my reason for having given it 4 instead of 5 stars is because the subplot about the Vietnam War was too detailed and long-winded and the subplot about the Indigenous Peoples' convention had a ranting quality that was a tad off-putting.

I enjoyed Uncle's Story as it reflected a lot of my ...

I enjoyed Uncle's Story as it reflected a lot of my own life and past. Its as if I was actually reading two separate stories that had been cleverly intertwined into one. I found it also inspirational and answered a lot of questions I needed to find out.