Evangeline Riddiford Graham at n+1:
Since her debut short story collection in 2010, Adam’s books have been published at a steady clip by Te Herenga Waka Press (formerly Victoria University Press), in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Her work is now beginning to reach the US audience it deserves. Her second novel, The New Animals, was reissued by Dorothy in 2023; last June, Coffee House Press released the US edition of Audition. From astronauts straining against the walls of their spaceship to women watching the cycle of addiction close in around them, Adam’s protagonists tend to be trapped in place, their desires and physical needs frustrated. The title story of Adam’s 2010 collection, Everything We Hoped For, opens with a new mother experiencing postpartum dissociation as she lies wrecked in her hospital room. In “The Kiss,” a New Zealand Army squadron returns from East Timor for Christmas; it’s supposed to be holiday leave, but the only place the protagonists are at ease is the barracks. In “This Is Better,” the owners of a dollar store hire a mystery shopper to visit every month to test a long-serving employee: their 33-year-old son, whose queerness they monitor as a kind of chronic disability.
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