Chidgey, CatherineSlaughter, TraceyMcPherson, Rogan2025-11-202025-11-202025https://hdl.handle.net/10289/17780For almost 30 years, members of the ‘Ludditious Faith of Our Heavenly Father, and the Foretellers of the Ongoing Apocalypse’ have been living a peaceful life. Fleeing the impending Y2K disaster, these Luddites buried themselves deep in the neglected wilds of east Aotearoa, founding the settlement of New Eden. Here, they follow the strict tenets set out by their founder and prophet, Enoch, while avoiding the technological apocalypse that has plagued the outside world. From their perspective, Y2K came to pass as a gradual moral degradation brought on by the onset of rapidly evolving technologies, and the greed and vanity of the 21st century has only cemented these beliefs. However, Enoch's sacrifice protected the Valley of Eden; thus, the year 2000 (and the sin of the millennium) never reached it. But that doesn’t mean New Eden is free of sin altogether. Sallow Men & Shallow Graves follows Margaret “Peggy” Matheson, a private investigator who loathes her profession and is ready for a career change. After completing her ‘final job’, she is reigned back in when a woman from her bloody past comes calling. Peggy agrees to find the woman’s daughter, but all she gets in terms of clues are rumours of an eccentric religious group living in the hills north of Gisbourne. To Peggy, it all sounds a little far-fetched. But when she finds evidence of other disappearances in the area, she can’t help but wonder if this cult - the so-called ‘Ludditious Faith’ - is responsible. While Peggy is our central protagonist, the novel briefly dips into the lives of those around her, such as Paisley (the main target of her investigation), William (the ‘Druid’ of the Ludditious Faith), and Tama (her guilt-ridden protégé). I explore the themes of guilt and deception and how they intersect with one’s perception of reality, both in terms of personal relationships and the overarching narrative of the cult. Throughout my writing process, I have endeavoured to avoid vilifying the cult as a whole. So often are fictional cults depicted as ‘evil’, but if you examine real communities like Jonestown or Centrepoint, what you find is a collection of ordinary people who lost their way in life, and a charismatic leader who can captivate an audience, and convince that audience that they are exactly where they need to be. Evil often begins and ends with one person, and everyone else - whether Luddite or citizen - is just trying to get by. Every character in this story has secrets: lies they tell themselves and others. But one reality I have aimed to enforce is that sometimes in life, you don’t get all the answers. Some, I offer freely. Others, I leave for the reader to decipher, interpret, or neglect. This story seeks your attention in some scenes and rewards it in others. It is a slow-burning narrative with a few small embers and flares along the way, but once it truly ignites, it doesn’t stop until there is nothing left but cinders and ashes.enAll items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.creative writingnovelfemale protagonistcultinvestigationThesis