Pearly Gates: a novel

Pat (Pearly to his friends) Gates runs a real estate agency in a small town on the South Island of New Zealand. To all intents and purposes he is a successful businessman and well liked in his local community where he is a councillor about to stand for a third term as mayor. In his younger days Pearly was a successful rugby player and may have even played for his country if injury had not cut short his rugby career. He is married to Helen and they have two grown up children who have moved away from home.

All appears to be going well for Pearly but he begins to have doubts and question some of his decisions and actions as well as his relationships, especially with family. At the end of some of the chapters there is a flashback to events that occurred earlier in Pearly's life which provide a back story as well as an insight into the state of Pearly's mind.

The author of this novel, Owen Marshall, is well known in New Zealand as a writer of short stories and poetry as well as, more recently, novels.

Owen Marshall's website