The Fish (2022) by New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones is set in the conservative middle of the 20th century, 2 teenage girls are pregnant. One, Carla, is sent off to Sydney and doesn’t have the baby. The other is banished to a caravan and gives birth to what the grandparents and uncle call “The Fish” but who is christened Colin Montgomery.

The Fish’s mother, as the unnamed narrator’s sister is called throughout the story, finds it increasingly difficult to care for her baby. She is sent to a mental health facility, then stays for a while with her parents, then she disappears.

Care of Colin falls to the grandparents and uncle. On the one hand, they seem ashamed of the child. On the other, they care for him unstintingly.