Dick Frizzell’s Hastings is a warm, nostalgic, and often hilarious tribute to his hometown, capturing the peculiar charm of mid-20th-century New Zealand. Best known as a painter, Frizzell turns his well-known artistic eye to storytelling, crafting a memoir that is as visually evocative as it is rich in character and wit.
Set in the 1950s and early 1960s, Hastings offers a portrait of a town—and a boy—coming of age. Frizzell recalls his childhood with an affectionate mix of admiration and nostalgia, painting a world of rock ’n’ roll, market gardens, the freezing works, and the mischief of a town on the cusp of change. His descriptions of neighbourhood characters, oddball traditions, and everyday adventures create a vivid sense of place, transforming Hastings into a microcosm of post-war New Zealand life.
The book is structured around 30 short, standalone stories, each a snapshot of a formative experience or eccentric local figure. This episodic approach allows Frizzell to move fluidly between humour, reflection, and sharp observation. His storytelling is stereotypically conversational, infused with the same energy and playfulness that defines his artwork. Whether recalling learning the Twist in the Labour and Trades Hall or teaching privileged South Island boys to dance at art school, he brings the past to life with a wry self-awareness that never veers into self-indulgence.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is Frizzell’s ability to balance the memories of his hometown with clear-eyed honesty. He doesn’t shy away from the more chaotic aspects of small-town life—the rebellious hoodlums, the rough edges of growing up in a working-class family—but he does so with warmth and without sentimentality. His recollections of his parents, in particular, are beautifully drawn: his mother, creative and resourceful, and his father, intelligent yet proudly resistant to artistic literacy. In writing about them, he seems to find deeper insights not only into their characters but into his own.
Hastings is, at its heart, a love letter—to a town, a time, and a way of life that has largely disappeared. Frizzell acknowledges that modern childhoods are different but resists easy comparisons or lamentations. Instead, he offers his memories as they are: joyful, messy, and deeply formative. The result is a book that is as entertaining as it is heartfelt, capturing the essence of small-town New Zealand with humour, nostalgia, and an artist’s keen eye for detail. Whether you grew up in Hastings or have never set foot there, Frizzell’s stories will leave you both laughing and longing for a time when boyhood was one grand adventure.
Reviewer: Chris Reed Massey University Press