Book of the Week: A disconnected, drifting urban Māori comedy

Shilo Kino’s novel All That We Know focuses on the young Māreikura Pohe as she navigates the fraught experience of reclaiming her reo as a disconnected, drifting urban Māori. The narrative’s voices are soaked in the language of social media subcultures: characters talk openly about the ongoing effects of colonial violence and intergenerational trauma, but they also discuss social media trends like callouts and cancelling.
In a refreshingly blunt afterword, Kino lays out that All That We Know was written in response to pervasive issues she has noticed in online activism: “I was … noticing a trend in online activism culture where the incessant pursuit of validation through social media seemed to overshadow the very causes that these online activists were advocating for.”
One aspect of online activism that often goes unexplored is the ‘inspirational speech by a young person’ genre of viral video; I’d argue that the novel’s most valuable contribution to modern social justice discourse is the way it places these viral youth influencers under the microscope. Main character Māreikura arrives at the narrative a minor social media celebrity, having gained millions of views for a filmed school assembly speech where she called out another student for doing blackface, and the school for allowing acts of racism to go unpunished.
What’s interesting here is the way in which this speech becomes a double-edged spectre that hangs over the entire narrative – it provides Māreikura with opportunities, but the way in which people gush over her bravery becomes a source of complication and shame. This sort of examination is timely and feels particularly relevant to me as a teacher. I often see these sorts of ‘viral’ speeches by young people elevated and taught as ‘texts’ alongside established written works. There’s wisdom to be found in these youthful voices, but I can’t help but wonder what it’d feel like to have one’s teenage views on vital issues wheeled out in classrooms across the country (or even the world) – particularly when those words were only meant for those in the room at one specific point in time. As Kino notes, “We need the powerful voices of rangatahi, [but] I began to wonder about the personal cost to our young people. Asking them to address centuries of colonisation and treating them as pawns in political discourse on national television felt more like exploitation.”
And yet, I would hate to paint All That We Know as some sort of dry, didactic thesis – it isn’t. Kino made her name in young adult fiction (in the form of 2020’s The Pōrangi Boy) and the novel demonstrates the snappy plotting and bright, likeable characters that you’d expect of a work for younger readers. It’s fun – and while it certainly touches on heavy subject matter, the tone never gets too dark. All That We Know is being billed as Kino’s ‘debut adult novel’, but I’d happily recommend it to younger readers who enjoyed The Pōrangi Boy.
In fact, I’d argue that this fuzzy divide between young adult and adult is one of the less talked about features of Māori writing. Our recent history of literature is full of books that have a foot in both worlds. See, for example, last year’s standout novel, Airana Ngarewa’s The Bone Tree, which – like All That We Know – pairs young protagonists and accessible prose with the ambition and ideas of adult fiction. I’d also point to recent hit Turncoat, where Tīhema Baker (swapping young adult dystopia for adult satire) became one of a long line of Māori writers to transition effortlessly between age demographics. Perhaps this phenomenon owes something to the appeal of young Māori protagonists as stand-ins for wider societal trends; there is a reason why Noel Hilliard’s landmark novel Maori Girl (1960) focused on young Netta Samuel as the author looked to reveal the cold realities of moving from one’s whenua to the city.
All That We Know works in a similar way. Māreikura’s listless existence as she moves from teenagerhood to adult life turns out to be the perfect parallel for cultural reconnection – both are spaces of transition, of learning and unlearning. And yet Kino refuses to romanticise, nor does she fall into the tired cliché of the naïve Māori girl worn down by colonised society. If anything, Māreikura is too aware. Her understanding of injustice is constantly creating friction in her closest relationships. As with the online activists that piqued Kino’s curiosity, it’s clear that we are meant to criticise our protagonist at times. But it is also clear that Kino likes Māreikura’s fire, her dissatisfaction with wrongs that manifest in small ways: the ‘Karen’ who criticises her skin, or the group of Pākehā men meticulously breaking down their share of a restaurant bill.
It’s a complex dynamic that sets the novel apart from more straightforward ‘coming-of-age’ narratives, and the characters and their sparky interactions are key to how All That We Know pulls it off. Kino spends the whole novel walking that most precarious of tightropes: using characters to thoroughly explore ‘the issues’, but not simply reducing them to lifeless mouthpieces. Kino avoids the latter, largely thanks to her keen sense of comedy; there’s plenty to laugh about in the lives of disconnected urban Māori (and if one doesn’t laugh, they’d probably cry). There’s an easy warmth to these characters and their relationships, and most of the novel’s best moments are when they get the space to just ‘hang out’ and talk. Considering how central Māreikura’s podcast is to the narrative, I wish there had been even more opportunities to see these personalities – each drawn with a smart clarity – play off each other. In fact, although I appreciate the narrative’s tight structure and fast pace, I would be interested to see an All That We Know that is looser, more formless. I imagine that such a novel would suit Kino’s strengths as a storyteller.
And while the novel strikes a good balance between politics and personalities, I would have liked more space for these characters to simply exist outside of their relation to colonisation, intergenerational trauma, and cultural reconnection. And that doesn’t mean that I wanted the politics toned down either; I like how bold and outspoken the novel is. But surely these issues can manifest in subtler ways, between the lines of everyday conversation. I love, for example, Māreikura’s childhood fear of Edward Scissorhands, and how it jokingly becomes connected to her suspicion of white men. I would have enjoyed even more of these small, funny details to fill out some of these characters.
That’s not to take away from what’s here though. All That We Know is often at its best when it wades deepest into complex, uncertain issues, and Kino reflects this in characters and relationships that feel equally fraught. These complicated dynamics are best captured in the odd relationship between Māreikura and her Pākehā classmate Chloe. Initially presented as the archetypal ‘obnoxious Pākehā in a reo Māori class’, Chloe gradually softens in the eyes of Māreikura – and the reader – after Māreikura is tasked with interviewing Chloe’s grandmother for an assignment. The dynamic feels poised for a classic ‘enemies to friends’ (or even lovers) shift, but Kino wisely avoids such a straightforward approach. A key twist is that they don’t really get to know each other; they get to know each other’s grandmothers. As such, this complicated web of interactions feels like a fitting microcosm of the novel’s broader exploration of the relationship between Māori and Pākehā, which is consistently uneasy. Kino poses difficult questions: Is there a place for Pākehā in exclusive te reo Māori spaces? What should the relationship between Māori and Pākehā aspire to? What can we learn from each other?
My favourite moment in the novel is a strangely intimate scene between Māreikura and Chloe after the death of Chloe’s grandmother: “They were looking at each other as if seeing each other for the first time. Māreikura studied Chloe, lying on the bed in grey trackpants, a black hoodie, knotty hair, panda eyes – a right mess grieving her grandma and now stuffing her face with chips. She was so awkward, so annoying, but for a moment, a split moment, Māreikura thought about the possibility of loving her.”
This possibility of an unlikely romance never eventuates, but the thought itself feels representative of the novel’s strength as a coming-of-age narrative. Māreikura finds herself embroiled in knotty questions with no clear answers, and Kino confidently leaves her readers hanging in many ways. Māreikura’s Mormon friend Eru, for example, comes out as gay at the novel’s conclusion, but his future at Brigham Young University is uncertain; Kino resists the easy option of having him simply turn his back on the church. And yet, like that brief pulse of love for the awkward, annoying Chloe, All That We Know seeds small moments of hope for its characters – like the touching return of Māreikura’s nana to her marae.
While I applaud the novel’s pervasive uncertainty, there are definitely aspects where All That We Know could be a little bolder. As satisfying as it seeing our main character return to her marae, and take in the sight of her maunga: What happens next? She resolves to stay outspoken and fiery, so how does a young, urban Māori be outspoken and fiery in the world of social media in way that is not – as Māreikura is accused of being – “entitled, self-centred, performative, egotistic, shallow”? We’re all trying to figure this stuff out, so I deeply appreciate that a smart, empathetic author like Kino is trying to figure it out too – and in the form of such a vivid, appealing slice of popular fiction. I’d be interested in seeing her return to these issues again, even to revisit this main character. So much of All That We Know is an urgent reminder of the need to slow down, to listen, and learn. I’d love to see a character like Māreikura put that learning into action and stake a path into the future.
All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Moa Books, $37.99) is available in bookstores nationwide. ReadingRoom has devoted all week to the book. Monday: the opening chapter. Tuesday: the launch speech by Miriama Kamo. Wednesday: an interview with Moa Press publisher Kate Stephenson. Jordan Tricklebank’s epic review concludes the series.