A Good Keen Man

"A Good Keen Man" was the first book written by best-selling New Zealand author Barry Crump, first published in 1960 by AH Reed. Written in a gruff, "blokey" style, it epitomises the life and times of the government deer cullers who were employed in the 50s, 60s and 70s to reduce the deer populations in the New Zealand bush, which had reached epidemic proportions with serious damage to the forest. It was a hard life for the men who undertook this work, only some of those who started out as hunters kept it up for long or made much of a success of it. The book captured New Zealand's imagination, summing up many cherished national stereotypes, and it remains one of the NZ's highest selling books, with numerous reprints. The phrase "a good keen man" was thus embedded into the New Zealand vernacular.

Plot introduction

Written in the first person, the protagonist is a rather naive youngster at the start of the book, who arrives at the base camp with a note from a recruiter in town, recommending him to the base camp head man as a "good keen man". As the book progresses, Barry's keenness and growing experience lead him to become the head man himself, and he in turn is sent a succession of newcomers, each with the identical "good keen man" recommendation. Each turns out to be either unsuited to the job, or a hazard to themselves in the bush, or just plain incompatible with Barry, with humorous results.