Garth Cartwright is an Auckland-born journalist who lives in a council flat in London. Apart from the odd visit to see the folks at Christmas, he hadn't been home for 20 years, until 2010 that is, when he decided it was time he caught up with old friends, and saw some of the country south of the Bombay Hills.
He's also got another reason for visiting: a record company in the UK wants him to track down 45s of two Kiwi hits from the 1960s, one by Alison Durbin and another by Dinah Lee.
Luckily, Cartwright's friends provide transport and accommodation, although backpackers, hitchhiking and buses also feature.
Being an avid name-dropper, I quickly warmed to Cartwright as he dropped Russell Crowe, I mean "Russ" on to some early pages. It seems Cartwright and Russ went to the same primary school in Mount Roskill - an Auckland working-class suburb - connection enough to talk The Listener into giving him the chance to interview Russ, now Russ le Roq, who fancied himself as a pop star.
Indeed, the focus of Sweet As is clearly on New Zealand as home to musicians, authors, artists, actors, sculptors, potters, film-makers, and memorable characters from history, including many Maori, who either made their mark in the wider world, or due to a combination of bad drugs and bad management, didn't; a potent mix that had me glued to the page from go to whoa.
If terms such as "maverick" and "anti-establishment" stir the blood, you'll especially like Cartwright when he puts the boot in.
But while I agreed with his opinion of Keri Hulme's The Bone People (dense, plodding, flabby), I actually liked Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, although Cartwright reckons Jackson peaked with Braindead in 1992. And I'll pass as far McCahon and Hotere are concerned, "artists who trade in a bloated abstract art, full of huffy, puffy, self-importance," though I'll look at their work with new eyes.
To round things off as far as local readers are concerned, Cartwright ends with a review of the Dunedin music scene and Deep South summer activities such as rodeos and surfing.
However, just in case you think Sweet As is all about Cartwright, some of the finest writing comes when the friends from younger days trot out wives/children/animals, etc, not to mention their latest creations, and sense that being a maverick and living in London may not be all that it's cracked up to be.
• Ian Williams is a Dunedin writer and composer.
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