Barbara Ewing's A Dangerous Vine (1999) is a coming-of-age story set in 1950s-era New Zealand, in the capital city of Wellington. The novel tells the story of seventeen year-old Margaret-Rose "Maggie" Bennett, a Pakeha (white) university student who opts to work part time at "the Bureau" (a predecessor of the Department of Maori Affairs, divided into offices responsible for "Adoptions", "Alienations", "Consolidations", "Housing" and "Welfare"), against the wishes of her WWII veteran father. Maggie's first job at the Bureau involves entering records of Maori land transactions into dusty, leather-bound volumes in the Land Records Room -- she's bored to tears, and wonders why her Maori friends are so obsessed with land.* However the job brings Maggie into contact with new people, and she soon becomes part of a mixed Maori/Pakeha social crowd who get together to drink beer and sing after work.

Through the lens of Maggie's experience, there's a lot to be learned in A Dangerous Vine about 20th century Maori/Pakeha social relations (a relationship marred by the overt racism of most Pakehas, not unlike relations between whites and African-Americans in the USA or First Nations and whites in Canada during the same era). When Maggie develops an interest in studying Maori, she is discouraged by friends and family members on the basis that the language is "dying". She keeps her studies a secret, but when she becomes romantically involved with Maori law student Timoti Pou, things become more complicated.

For me, this book was a real "sleeper" -- I wondered at first what I was getting into (1950s-era womanhood can be a pretty scary place to visit!), then I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended.

A Dangerous Vine was longlisted for the 2000 Orange Prize for Fiction.
I read another copy of this book back in 2005 and at that time I wrote
" I have so enjoyed this book not least because Barbara Ewing is such a good writer and her expressions, characterisation and choice of words is so good.
It is horrifying in some ways to see what a short distance we have come in NZ to recognize Maori tanga but also exiting to see how far we have come in some ways. Many of the comments and attitudes expressed in here in the '50s are still prevalent.
But how exciting to see the virtual implosion on our political scene of the Maori Party. It will be interesting to watch developments once the makeup of our Government is settled."

Nowadays the Maori Party has considerable influence in Parliament as it holds a number of seats. Whether that will be the same after the next election in November 2011 as there is a competing party with a strong Maori constituency.

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