Surplus Women

Survival, friendship, love, desire, pain, freedom.

Jess is the only one in her group who hasn’t lost her virginity. Genevieve is being held captive in a dug-out with her gymnastics nemesis from 40 years ago. At night, Jade absorbs catcalls like Mario powering up on mushrooms. From heaven, the Dream Team data-analyses human destinies while worrying about their job security. As Whetu and Sia race to the hospital in the rain, Whetu remembers another night that changed everything.

This is a collection of stories about women in past, present and future Aotearoa. Michelle Duff’s cast of hungry teenage girls, top detectives who forget to buy milk, frustrated archivists, duplicitous real estate agents, and ‘surplus women’ are all as vivid as wafts of Impulse from a backpack in the 90s. These stories move nimbly from realism to comic overdrive, from the outlandish to the simply true, with characters reappearing from new angles. As they meditate on power and patriarchy, love and bad decisions, these stories remind us of the sweet dreams we used to have and how it feels to wake up from them.