Down from Upland

Down from Upland is a kitchen sink, domestic novel that opens at the precise moment the first Millennials find themselves raising a teenager. While flirting with an open marriage, Jacqui and Scott nudge their son on a more moderate course as he begins at a new high school and makes new friends. Skewering the best and worst of Wellington's leafy middle class, the novel features public servants with varying degrees of integrity, precocious Wellington High students and a foreign lover at the end of a working holiday visa.

Murdoch Stephens lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington. His 2020 novel Rat King Landlord was praised as a thrilling, surreal, often hilarious ride by Newsroom and last year's surprise literary hit by Stuff. He is also the author of a handful of books writing as Richard Meros.