ABSTRACT
I open my essay with a swift but, I hope, convincing argument that the beach is a Gothic 1 site in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The beach has another existence, of course: we know it as that bright and sunshiny place complemented by hot cars, hot asphalt, ice creams, children, lilos, surfers, sand, sandals, sandwiches, sunburn. But the New Zealand family also likes to get together at the beach for Christmas—and, famously, one of Mahy’s ghosts in The Tricksters is quite incredulous about celebrating “the family” at Christmas. “You might just as well celebrate battle, murder and sudden death,” he remarks (Mahy 1986: 92). Such violent events, of course, do regularly and notoriously occur in families at Christmas time; as do, at New Year, riots and fights, most oft en at beach resorts, and, at both Christmas and New Year, drownings and road accidents, a common part of our midsummer festivities, and two of our favourite ways of dying.
