Mr Gee is a solemnly earnest writer, but Plumb carries conviction as an honest chronicle of the life and times of a New Zealand family through two generations; many of the facts have been taken from the writings of the author's grandparents. On the last page, his cherished ear-trumpet shattered by the homosexual son with whom he has made an unsuccessful attempt to be reconciled, the old man thinks: 'I'm ready to die, or live, or understand, or love, or whatever it is.'

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John Mellors, "Mirror Writing" (© British Broadcasting Corp. 1978; reprinted by permission of John Mellors), in The Listener, Vol. 100, No. 2583, October 26, 1978, p. 546.∗