After the Fireworks is the biography of a New Zealand journalist and novelist who believed he 'never really made it' and whose fiction has been too quickly forgotten (he died in 1986). He stands with Ronald Hugh Morrieson as one of the first local novelists to escape from the narrow limits of critical realism and provincial inadequacy. This is a very readable account of his life by a friend who knew him well and it is also a picture of the worlds of journalism and literary endeavour in the postwar period. It shows his brilliant early start with ""The Cunninghams"", his friendship with Sargeson, the mystery of his interrupted career and the surprise of his sudden late flowering. This sensitive workmanlike book will help to reawaken wider interest in this important writer: his two novels ""The Cunninghams"" and ""Sydney Bridge Upside Down"" are already seen as classics and his two last novels are of considerable interest.