Angel Train by Elizabeth Smither

Elizabeth Smither’s Angel Train is a graceful and layered collection of four novellas, each offering a self-contained yet subtly interconnected meditation on the complexity of human experience. Moving fluidly across continents, centuries and emotional registers, the collection demonstrates Smither’s rare ability to blend wit, empathy and poetic precision into narratives that are as illuminating as they are understated.

Each novella occupies its own imaginative landscape. The opening story traces a literary friendship between two poets whose creative and emotional lives intertwine, exploring the intricate rhythms of admiration, rivalry and affection that shape artistic relationships. The second centres on a Tasmanian highwayman whose misguided sense of justice raises questions about moral inheritance and the lingering pull of conscience. In the third, a fleeing French countess becomes a kind of historical echo within a later story of modern love and quiet dissolution, linking two eras through their shared yearning and disillusionment. The final piece, set near Tongariro National Park, unfolds with a mysterious stillness, as a group of visitors confront subtle shifts in their perceptions of the natural and the supernatural.

Smither’s prose is as precise as it is lyrical. Her sentences, polished to a shimmer, balance poetic intensity with narrative clarity. She has long been celebrated for her portrayal of interior lives, and Angel Train confirms that reputation: her characters think deeply, act impulsively, and linger in the reader’s imagination long after the page has turned. Beneath the apparent restraint of her style lies a subversive curiosity about the moral and emotional truths that shape ordinary lives.

What binds these novellas together is Smither’s fascination with transformation. Whether through art, love or loss, her characters seek meaning in moments that are fleeting yet profound. The past haunts the present, the mundane glances toward the mystical, and the familiar becomes newly strange under her careful gaze. These stories invite contemplation rather than judgement, revealing beauty in fragility and courage in hesitation.

The novella, as Smither employs it, feels perfectly suited to her vision. It allows the sweep of a novel while preserving the concision and concentration of the short story. Her mastery of tone and rhythm gives each piece its own pulse, yet together they form a cohesive whole - a quiet symphony of human striving and reflection.

Angel Train is a work of elegance and insight, written by one of New Zealand’s most accomplished literary voices. It offers not grand drama but the slow revelation of meaning in the everyday, transforming domestic moments, historical fragments and quiet reckonings into art of lasting resonance. Smither reminds us that no life, however seemingly ordinary, is without its poetry, its mystery, and its grace.

Reviewer: Chris Reed

Quentin Wilson Publishing