Tough

Men wake floating in their tents as a river scales its banks. Four girls gather around a Ouija board as a boy crouches at a window. A woman visits the man who took her prisoner as a girl. A boy decides to become a sinner as he tramps out of Reefton in the last of daylight.

The remarkable stories in Tough tunnel back and forth between the west coast of New Zealand’s present and its gold-mining past. They explore rugged lives lived out against rugged landscapes. But the stories also find moments of grace, solace, and unlikely triumph.

With unflinching honesty and dramatic flair, Amy Head gives us a new view of a place and a people on the margins.