Specimen: Personal Essays
Winner of the Best First Book Award for General Non-Fiction, Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2021
A father rollerblading to church in his ministerial robes, a university student in a leotard sprinting through fog, a trespass notice from Pak’nSave, a beautiful unborn goat in a jar . . .
In scenarios ranging from the mundane to the surreal, Madison Hamill looks back at her younger selves with a sharp eye. Was she good or evil? Ignorant or enlightened? What parts of herself did she give up in order to forge ahead in school, church, work, and relationships, with a self that made sense to others?
With wit and intelligence, these shape-shifting essays probe the ways in which a person’s inner and outer worlds intersect and submit to one another. It is a brilliantly discomfiting, vivid and funny collection in which peace is found in the weirdest moments.
I never felt that I was looking at fine writing – only at astonishing writing.
— Elizabeth Knox
Madison Hamill writes with rare precision and bravery. Also she’s hilarious.
— Catherine Woulfe, The Spinoff
Hamill is a stand-out voice in an era where whirlwind romances are actually one-night stands, where everyone seems on the autism spectrum, asexuality always a possibility, fried chicken ubiquitous, and where surrealist juxtapositions appear mysteriously in the midst of ordinary life. . . Hamill’s great, no question.
— David Herkt, Sunday Star-Times
In short, it’s devastatingly good writing.
— Emma Gattey, Landfall Review