Oracles and Miracles is Stevan Eldred-Grigg’s best-selling debut novel about Ginnie and Fag, twin sisters growing up in Christchurch in the thirties and forties, a city of ‘peeling paint, flaking iron, cracked linoleum, dusty yards, lean-tos, and asphalts, dunnies and textile mills’. This colourful story focuses on the relationship between the girls as they grow into women and their attempt to escape their impoverished background.
The story is alternatively narrated by the eloquent Fag and the sensitive Ginnie, as well as sections told by an historian and industrial psychologist.
Oracles and Miracles is a much admired book that readers have loved for the past 20 years, identifying strongly with Ginnie and Fag and their efforts to make their way in the world. It has been adapted for radio and the stage.