The Gorse Blooms Pale gathers together twenty-six stories reflecting on his experiences while growing up in an Irish-New Zealand family in Southland. Comic, haunting, poetic, profound and lyrical, the stories have a regional flavour quite unlike any other body of work in New Zealand literature. They insightfully capture the character of a close-knit community on the edge of town with a flair equal to such other New Zealand writers as Sargeson, Frame, Middleton or Marshall. The Gorse Blooms Pale is a rare treasure in the landscape of twentieth-century New Zealand literature.