Pet by Catherine Chidgey

Pet is a novel about a charismatic teacher who holds a grip over a class, and what happens when things start to go wrong. Justine wants to be Mrs Price’s pet, as do the rest of her class, including her best friend Amy. They all want to be allowed to do little errands for their teacher and feel the warmth of her gaze, rather than her unfair dislike. When Justine gets her wish and finds herself centre of attention, she’s thrilled, but when a thief strikes the class over and over again, things start to get murkier, and Justine is pulled between loyalties.

The narrative is split between the 1980s, when Justine was 12, and her as an adult, dealing with a ghost from the past. The book doesn’t feel the need to fill in every gap using this split narrative, like some books do, and it works as a way of having a more grown up perspective on something that happened to a 12 year old. The story itself is a classic tale of childhood betrayal by an adult who seemed too good, and it’s easy to see this coming throughout the book, from Mrs Price’s unfair favouritism and purposeful divisive actions to more dramatic elements later on. The twists tend to be quite obvious, but this seems like it is to show what a child would miss whereas an adult might notice if not taken in by the charisma of the teacher.

I’ve not read many books from New Zealand and this one explores some themes in the background, like racism and the influence of Catholicism, to paint a picture of 1980s Wellington in terms of social attitudes. Written in a straightforward style, it is readable and gripping, with a few elements that aren’t fully formed (like Justine’s epilepsy which is a plot device and only ever treated as one).