The Page 69 Test: "The Book of Guilt"

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

"The Book of Guilt"

Catherine Chidgey’s novels have been published to international acclaim. Her first, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book

Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. Chidgey has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize. Her novel Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novels The Wish Child and The Axeman’s Carnival both won the Acorn Prize for Fiction, New Zealand’s most prestigious literary award. She lives in Cambridge, New Zealand, and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.

Chidgey applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Book of Guilt, and shared the following:

From page 99:
‘No matter, no matter,’ said the Minister as Mother Morning blushed right through her face powder to the roots of her hair.

‘How was your journey down?’ asked Mother Afternoon. ‘Really rather pleasant, once we left the A4,’ said the Minister.

‘Ah, the A4,’ said Mother Afternoon, as if she travelled it regularly and knew its shortcomings.

‘Dreadful congestion around Chiswick,’ said Dr Roach. ‘You should ask the Prime Minister to do something about it.’

I thought he was joking, but his face was stony.

The Minister said, ‘Roading is on her radar, certainly. I’m so sorry I was late.’

‘Quite all right,’ said Mother Morning, waving an airy hand.

‘You could have driven down together,’ said William. ‘That would have saved time.’

‘Mm,’ said the Minister.

Mother Afternoon nodded towards the dainty sandwiches on the tiered cake stand and said, ‘They picked the watercress themselves, our boys.’

‘They’re most resourceful,’ added Mother Morning, handing a side plate to the Minister. ‘Fondant fancy?’

Only Mother Night was silent. I kept glancing at her, and I couldn’t shake the thought that she wanted to burst into tears – but perhaps that was just because I wasn’t used to seeing her in the daytime and understanding the way her face moved and changed in natural light.

The Minister ate one fondant fancy and half a sandwich. Mother Afternoon tried to persuade her to try the Dundee cake – she’d made special patterns with the almonds on top, and I knew she was disappointed to see it untouched – but the Minister insisted she couldn’t manage another bite, delicious as it looked. Being in the public eye, she said, she had to watch her figure. She held her hand over her side plate as if to deflect anyone attempting to slip her a piece of Dundee cake. ‘She’s in the newspaper,’ Mother Morning told Mother Afternoon.
Page 69 is pivotal to The Book of Guilt: this is the moment when the Minister of Loneliness visits a mysterious home for boys that she is charged with shutting down. The scene includes most of the major players – it’s narrated by Vincent, one of three identical triplet brothers who have grown up in the home, and readers get a good idea of how uncomfortable the boys’ carers – Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night – feel in the company of the Minister, who is just about to break the bad news. At this point, it’s all awkward small talk, but Dr Roach, who oversees the Sycamore Homes, is ‘stony’ – he knows what’s on the horizon.

This page gives just a hint of the unease that characterises the book – Mother Night’s silence suggests all is not well, as does Vincent’s slight confusion about her – but I think readers who consume the full novel will notice much more the pervasive sense that something is wrong, and the way it gradually intensifies as the story progresses. I loved turning the tension up and up, and I hope readers relish this aspect of the novel.

Mother Morning’s line ‘Fondant fancy?’ still makes me laugh, and is a small gesture towards the humour in the book. I hear my own mother in her voice – pretending at sophistication, offering some dreadful 1970s confection to a guest she wanted to impress.