He was raised in Timaru, and now he is raising eyebrows.
While Johnny Crawford’s debut book Downstream from Nowhere was released at a launch party in Wellington in August, a local book launch will be held next month.
Mr Crawford’s mother Anne Crawford said the initial print run sold out within a week.
Mrs Crawford said her son was the product of a ‘‘nurturing’’ Timaru community.
Mr Crawford attended Roncalli College from 2003 to 2007 and said his English and drama teacher Michelle Denson was a ‘‘monumental figure’’ in terms of getting him interested in literature, theatre and film.
Mrs Crawford had always hoped her son would write as he was always very creative.
‘‘He was in touch with Joy Cowley when he was 5, we treasure the letter she wrote in response.’’
Mrs Crawford said his first book was a very funny novella ‘‘about a piece of land, told over its history’’.
The story was told through the lens of music festivals, but while it was comedic there was serious political subtext.
She said the odd cuss word might not make the book everyone’s cup of tea, but she loved it.
‘‘Friends and family who have read the book have said they’d enjoyed it.
‘‘I found footnotes excellent to remind me of some New Zealand history, it would be good for New Zealand migrants.
‘‘We’re very proud.’’
Mr Crawford was a youth parliament delegate in the early 2000s.
‘‘I’m sure heaps of my former teachers would give the book a scathing review,’’ he said
Poet Jordan Hamel, who had also attended Roncalli College said the novella continued a lineage of bracing and complex New Zealand literary satire.
‘‘[Mr] Crawford sends us running straight into a tornado of intergenerational colonial mindsets, jingoistic historicism and pop-cultural epochs with a goat’s head in one hand and a kebab in the other,’’ Mr Hamel said.
The author was ‘‘probably the best thing to come out of Timaru since Phar Lap’’, he said.
The event would be held at Timaru Booksellers at 2pm on November 1.
