The Last Letter of Godfrey Cheathem
The Wairau Diversion
Idiosyncratic books made in a big valley near a crooked river.
The aspirations of The Wairau Diversion are modest, not extending beyond passion projects that reflect the particular tastes of its principal, Luke Elworthy. Based in sunny Marlborough, Luke hopes that one day TWD will publish something written by someone else.
The Last Letter
of Godfrey Cheathem
By Luke Elworthy
A novel of father figures, bullshit and belonging.
As Vladimir Nabokov expert Professor Brian Bode writes in his foreword to Godfrey Cheathem’s last letter:
“… I was able to play a prominent role in bringing his remarkable novel Chasing the Fading Light to worldwide attention. As was shown in my biography of Godfrey Cheathem (a New York Times #1 bestseller for 28 weeks), this was despite my doubts that a New Zealander — or, more particularly, this son of New Zealand — could have penned what is now recognised as not only a supreme Antipodean novel, but also as the novel that may yet prove to be one of the greatest of this new Oceanic century”.
Traumatised by his failure to match the creative successes of his precocious younger siblings – early over-achievers in theatre, music and fine arts – Godfrey Cheathem never expects that his baffling experimental pottery will one day lead him to the unlikely heights of international book publishing. There he meets a mysterious artist, a pivotal encounter on a journey of self-discovery that points up some of the many absurdities of New Zealand life and culture, and culminates in Godfrey’s comic yet anguished unravelling at a grand reunion at the Cheathem tūrangawaewae, the farm that has been in his wider family for generations.
Godfrey Cheathem died not long after completing his last letter in his cell in Paparua prison, never living to see the publication of his great novel. Cheathem’s letter is written to his sister, and tries to explain the events that led to his imprisonment.
Trade paperback, 230 x 152 mm, 324 pages
Distributed by Nationwide Books
Publication: August 2022
ISBN 978-0-473-60004-4, $35
About Luke Elworthy
Luke Elworthy was born in India and comes from a family of publishers and farmers. Growing up in Wellington, he was educated at Church of England boarding school Christ’s College, in Christchurch, and spent much of his school holidays at controversial Auckland cult, Centrepoint. He has worked in marketing, publicity and editorial roles with book publishers in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the Netherlands, and he has an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University in Wellington. He lives with his family just outside Blenheim.
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