Book Launch: Residual Imaged by Gayna Vetter

Please join us for the launch of Residual Images, a new novel from local author Gayna Vetter!

About the book:
Roused from exile in Hornby, Canterbury, 27-year-old photographer Etzel Baumann returns home to the American Midwest, only to be re-immersed in a toxic family dynamic.

She finds solace—and secrets—in a rusting trunk of family photographs that come to life. Etz’s parents are revealed as she never knew them: her father, handsome, blue-eyed, happy; her mother, gorgeous, flirtatious, and yes, she too is happy. But who is this other handsome man who her mother clearly adored?

Driven by a need to understand the past, this youngest of eight siblings is bombarded by an imposed role and unwelcome fate. Around her, old resentments bubble up and violence brews, exploding in a brutal act of humiliation.

About Gayna:
Gayna Vetter lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Born in the North Dakota, USA, she has lived in Aotearoa New Zealand for over forty years.

One summer many years ago, Vetter volunteered at the site of a former concentration camp in northern Poland, Stutthoff, where she sorted buried shoes to help establish the camp as a museum. There, she was exposed to artwork and photographs that wept their stories and inspired her to listen to images. This experience was instrumental for her first novel, Residual Images.

Gayna holds the Advanced and Graduate Diploma’s in Creative Writing from Whitireia. She has previously published poetry, short stories and a film script.

Residual Images was written with the support of the CompleteMS Programme run by the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc) and supported by Creative New Zealand.