Checkerboard HilI is a story of belonging, dislocation, misunderstandings, identity and fractured relationships.
When a family member dies in Australia, Ria flies from New Zealand and returns to the family and home in Australiashe suddenly left decades before as a teenager. Waiting for her return are her husband and son in New Zealand.Neither family has met the other, and Ria has always kept her Māori, Australian, New Zealand identities and livesseparate. But the family tensions, unfinished arguments, connections to places and meeting of former friends, leadRia to revisit her memories and reflect on the social and cultural tensions and racism she experienced, and thedecisions she made. The novel confronts the complexities of families, secrets and trauma and the way these playout across generations. It also explores the ways in which Māori cultural traditions and tikanga are transmutedand transformed across the Tasman, across time and space.