Everything We Hoped For

Winner of the 2011 NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction

A young mother in shocked contemplation of her new baby and young women in rehab and jail feature in mostly short and oblique stories which echo and connect with cumulative power. A broad range of other characters, including a NZ serviceman returned from active duty in Dili, the employees of a $2 Shop and a vegan couple at a Samoan resort complete an impressive contemporary canvas.

‘a kind of post-post modern fiction – nothing meta, no irony, no narrative arc, no insights or character transformations – the stories are flatline and searing and real.' —Helen Lehndorf

‘Adam knows how to brew a story to its essence and to infuse an emotional undercurrent that is deeply affecting’ —Paula Green, Canvas

Pip Adam is a prize-winning New Zealand novelist. She is the author of the novels Audition (2023), Nothing to See (2020), The New Animals (2017), and I'm Working on a Building (2013).