If you are a literary festival-goer in Aotearoa, you may have seen Tara Black sitting in the audience drawing pakiwaituhi (comics) of the event. Now she has published her first pukapuka (book) and it’s clear that her practice in observing people has been put to good use.

This Is Not A Pipe is told in three layers: Beth narrating her life in the form of a graphic novel; her partner Kenneth’s blog posts and the short pakiwaituhi Beth draws to accompany those posts.  

A gentle air of surrealness pervades the whole pukapuka. Beth has a pole that goes through both her arms just above the wrist; she declares, “It is not a metaphor.” Sometimes tiny bugs float out of her pole in miniature hot air balloons. The pole is a physical whaikaha (disability) that constricts her movements, always making her arms bleed slightly and causing chronic pain.  

I am impressed by how well Black, a non-disabled kaituhi (writer), has created a believable and nuanced tuawahine whaikaha (disabled main female character). Beth’s lonely acceptance of the pole feels dreadfully familiar as do the ableist responses of those around her: “Most people try not to make eye contact.”

Beth’s boss asks her to eat lunch at her desk because, she says, her pole is grossing people out: “it’s not good for the digestion, you know?” Beth agrees without question: “I like her. She’s kind.” In the background we see Beth’s colleagues gossiping: “Why doesn’t she just take it out?” (As an aside, if you ever find yourself beginning a question to a disabled person with “why don’t you just…?”, you are not helping. Please stop.)

Beth and her friend May work at a telco called Telstoy. “I asked when I first arrived if the name was a play on Tolstoy. My manager didn’t know who that was. If it’s not a play on Tolstoy, what’s a ‘stoy’? I still don’t know.”  

May is my favourite character because she is the only person who treats Beth with respect and kindness. But even she – a non-disabled person – doesn’t really understand about the pole. She asks Beth, “When was the last time you tried to take it out?” But Beth can’t take it out. May says: “I don’t think you’re trying hard enough.” Then in the next frame, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

 Beth lives with her boyfriend Kenneth and never before have I come to loathe a character more quickly. Kenneth is creating his own religion called the Church of Narrative; that is to say, he is writing a series of blog posts and claiming they are “performance art.” This plodding navel-gazery doesn’t attract much online attention but he closes comments on his blog anyway because he can’t bear even the mildest criticism.

Kenneth acts both as Beth’s caregiver and her abuser. He helps her wash and dress. At night when she snores, he puts his hand over her nose and mouth to deprive her of oxygen. He hurts her on purpose then calls her “passive” and “inert” when she freezes. On their wall is a poster saying “KENNETH LOVES YOU” – as though Kenneth’s draining and mean-spirited love were a prize to be constantly grateful for. Like May, I am keen for Beth to be rid of him.

This Is Not A Pipe is, as they say, a rich text with lots of writing-about-writing and storytelling-about-storytelling. The ending is shocking and extraordinary and it took me a couple of goes to work out how I wanted to interpret it. This is one of the most vivid and thought-provoking debut pukapuka I’ve read in quite some time.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Heritage

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