O'Leary's Orchard and other Stories by MAURICE DUGGAN. (Caxton Press, Christchurch 1970, $3.50.) Reviewed by SHIRLEY FOX.

What do we expect in a book of short stories? The fireside thoughts of an aging profligate, or a view of life as sterile or scintillating as the author himself? Whatever our expectations, in this latest book of Maurice Duggan's we find perceptions of life and love which reverberate through the pages with fluidity, irony and wit.

O'Leary's Orchard and Other Stories introduces a proposed series of uniform volumes of short stories by New Zealanders, and as such is an interesting example of an often under-rated literary medium. Mr Duggan obviously sees life as a tragi-comic experience. He expresses this interpretation in three short stories, which although occasionally pedantic, are generally colourful, perceptive or even brilliant.

The title story, O'Leary's Orchard, set in rustic Eden, involves a rather unconspicuous love-affair between an aged, though virile, orchardist and an infatuated young girl en route to drama school.

The affair achieves birth, maturity and death in the rather risque world of modem drama—amid rehearsals in the hay and 'depraved allegories' in the church hall. This is a transient world of sometimes poitnantly delicate shades of blues, gold and white. Mr Duggan observes, and sketches his pleasingly flexible portraits with irony, sensuality, and a wit ranging from gentle humour to bawdy sacrilege. Because of this fluidity, the story offers pleasant, though not perhaps memorable, reading.

The next story, An Appetite For Flowers, involves Hilda—who would "have liked someone to come, simply, with roses and kind hands." Instead of such domestic bliss, hers was a world of sawdust—tainted elopement with the butcher; Anthony ("a married man with a rich wife and a packet of kids"); an inadequate Mr Rowbotham; an alienated son; and a pig of an ex-husband. "Even the wool was kinked" in Hilda's unaffectionate existence where she must cope with grasping shadows and a seductive staircase. Normalcy here means [in] humanity, hatred and drabness. Mr Duggan is capable of portraying this with realism, sensitivity and understanding.

The final story, Riley's Handbook, is a lewd, jocular and rather intense picture of life with Riley. The hero is absorbed in an introverted, breathless contemplation of freedom ("A cell? Where else should I look for freedom?"), escape, guilt, revenge, love-and death.

Using a form of interior monologue, Mr Duggan introduces us to an inebriated bum capable of examining his rather pointless existence with a degree of perception lacking in most sages. We follow as he leads: 'Something it is I'm working out here, working towards my own inimitable and disgusting way. My own mecca and hangrope.'

This story, told with control, depth and wit, comples the unity of the book. In each segment we have met a representative of mankind—the lover, the drudge, and the dying man. Although ostensibly unalike, they, we are aware, intertwine at different times. All help comprise the 'complex-simplicity' that is man.

Mr Duggan competently uses the short story form to outline these frailties, vulnerabilities and perversities of men with wit, versatility and compassion. If you are interested in man as a social and moral animal you may find the fruit of O'Leary's Orchard and Other Stories worth sampling.