The Bone People

The main protagonist of the story, Kerewin Holmes, is a painter who has lost her ability to create art after a falling out with her family. To escape painful memories and limit human interaction, she builds a small tower on the coast, away from other people. However, her desire for isolation and avoidance of pain become a prison of sorts, not allowing her to process her feelings and move forward.

Kerewin is both Maori and European, or pakeha. She identifies as fully Maori, but outwardly she looks white, and her appearance occasionally causes her to feel as an imposter among other Maori. Furthermore, both her personality and physical body transgress white social and gender expectations. To another white person, her appearance seems to be androgynous: Simon is unsure at first whether she is a woman or a man (48). She also describes herself as “heavy shouldered, heavy-hammed, heavy-haired” with “short brows,” “yellowed eyes, and eczema scarred skin” (21). She has “large hands and large feet, crooked only if you look closely” and is “encased in jeans, leather jerkin, silk shirt, denim jacket, knife at side, bare footed” (21). All these descriptions suggest that Kerewin does not fit Western standards of beauty and femininity. Furthermore, she is asexual; she writes about herself, “I am still myself, iron lady cool and virgin. Maybe not lady. But what to call that port, the neuter human?” (96). This revelation marks her as clearly outside European gender norms.

However, Kerewin is not simply androgynous but rather nonbinary or agendered. She does not feel like or want to become a man but also does not fit the stereotypical female gender roles of wife and mother. Toward the end of the novel, she recalls her attempts at coming up with a new way of talking about herself, such as the neutral pronouns “ve/ver/vis” (426).

The things that mark Kerewin as an outsider—her dislike of physical touch, disinterest in sex, corpulence—are what mark her as Maori. The binary and heteronormative models of behavior adopted by New Zealand society are remnants of its colonial past. Not conforming to these norms, in the book, is shown as positive, rather than problematic. Maori women have darker skin and a very different body type compared to English women. It also seems that traditionally they were expected to be more outspoken and assertive than their European counterparts. Maori folklore also valorizes strong and brave women, such as Taranga and Hina, as well as the female Earth deity Papatuanuku. In the novel, all the older Maori women are authoritative and able to accomplish difficult or impossible tasks due to the strength of their will.

Despite her love for and identification with Maori culture, Kerewin must undergo a process of internal healing, both physical and mental, before she can fully embrace her heritage and her difference. At the beginning of the novel, she is emotionally stunted and seems unable to fully connect with others. She attempts to distance herself from Simon even as she takes an interest in him, referring to the boy as “it” or “toy.” Keeping one’s distance and isolating oneself are not part of the Maori way of life, however, so Kerewin needs to overcome her pain and learn to commit to others before she can rejoin her family and create one of her own. Her illness can be seen as a physical manifestation of her emotional wounds. The first time she experiences pain is after the fight with Joe, and the first time she feels a lump is after Joe’s last beating of Simon. Her physical symptoms are connected to negative emotions, and her healing is related to letting go or working through them.