John Newton: Escape Path Lighting

Rock Oyster Island is the home that writer John Newton populates with a bizarre community of characters for his new satirical verse novel, Escape Path Lighting. Here we meet a fugitive poet, a Spanish speaking parrot, a dissolute musician and a psychoanalyst, among others. John, who's this year's Burns Fellow at Otago University, has several poetry collections and non fiction books to his name but Escape Path Lighting is something new.