Straight is set in early 1980's Auckland and begins with Paul Calvert's return to that city after several years in the mysterious place called 'Dreamland'. Fighting off several flash-backs he discovers that reality can often be stranger than dreams. Along the way he discovers things about his past that he had no conception of and his whole life is brought into existential question. Was his own birth due to an SS experiment during World War Two to create an 'Aryan Māori', were his presumed parents gun-runners for the IRA, and who are the people following him around the city in a black Mercedes Benz? Add to this a surreal mix of local characters from the still down-at-heel Ponsonby drug scene and the upper-class opulence of Remuera and you have a novel alive with energy and surprise. In the background is the developing love story of Paul and Hine. Also the city of Auckland becomes a character itself, much in the way Graham Greene used his locations to define and enhance many of his novels.
Responses to Michael O'Leary's novel Straight
'There has been enough of the humourless and bleak 'man alone' theme in New Zealand writing. Straight is a positive attempt to counter these traditions. In it the main character comes from being isolated to joining a family network'.
Inner City News book reviewer, Auckland, 1985
'I'd cooked up some ink and charcoal drawings for Michael O'Leary's first novel, Straight which appeared thanks to the guile of Professor Terry Sturm'.
Gregory O'Brien, Essay for The Earl is in… Wellington, 2008
