The Mires
25 September 2025Imprint: Footnote Press
Synopsis
'Water will come and you think it will be soft. You think it will be smooth and find its way around your things: your houses and cars and furniture, your gardens and windows and hope. But water can be the foot of an elephant, the horns of a moose, a herd of buffalo running from a lion, water can be the kauri falling in the forest, a two-tonne truck, a whole stadium filled with 50,000 people, screaming . . . Water is life, and water can be death.'
Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old tearaway Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child, who always picks up on things that aren't hers to worry about. They live next door to Janet, a white woman with an opinion about everything, and new arrival Sera, whose family are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe.
When Janet's son Conor arrives home without warning, sporting a fresh buzzcut and a new tattoo, the quiet tension between the neighbours grows, but no one suspects just how extreme Conor has become. No one except Wairere who can feel both the danger, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.
Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old tearaway Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child, who always picks up on things that aren't hers to worry about. They live next door to Janet, a white woman with an opinion about everything, and new arrival Sera, whose family are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe.
When Janet's son Conor arrives home without warning, sporting a fresh buzzcut and a new tattoo, the quiet tension between the neighbours grows, but no one suspects just how extreme Conor has become. No one except Wairere who can feel both the danger, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.
Details
25 September 2025320 pages
9781804441909Imprint: Footnote Press
Reviews
The Mires is about the monsters we've created and the power we have to stop them. A truly magnificent novelShankari Chandran, author of CHAI TIME AT CINNAMON GARDENS
The Mires is a work of art. The impacts of colonisation, movement, and climate change cut to the bone in glittering prose and through characters kept close as neighbours. In The Mires, the environment speaks, culture transcends boundaries and the myriad ideas of home are bitterly defended. Only Tina Makereti could hold a reader in such tense tendernessLaura Jean McKay, author of GUNFLOWER
An enchanting novel: poignant, earnest and lyrical, this story will settle in your bonesMaxine Beneba Clarke, author of THE HATE RACE
As both a writer and a refugee, this book resonates with my experiences, skilfully addressing the link between refugee lives, colonialism and climate changeBehrouz Boochani, author of NO FRIEND BUT THE MOUNTAINS