The Commercial Hotel

When John Summers moved to a small town in the Wairarapa and began to look closely at the less-celebrated aspects of local life our club rooms, freezing works, night trains, hotel pubs, landfills he saw something deeper. It was a story about his own life, but mostly about a place and its people. The story was about life and death in New Zealand.Combining reportage and memoir, The Commercial Hotel is a sharp-eyed, poignant yet often hilarious tour of Aotearoa: a place in which Arcoroc mugs and dog-eared political biographies are as much a part of the scenery as the hills we tramp through ill-equipped.