Australian Women's Book Review: Online

Hecate's
Australian Women's Book Review

ISSN 1033-9434
Editor:  Barbara Brook
Contributing Assistant Editor:  Katie Hughes
Photomontage:  Set in Stone, Adele Flood

Volume 12, 2000

Short listings

Fiction

Ø Finola Moorhead. darkness more visible. Spinifex Press, pb., $24.95, 649 pp.

A very interesting new novel from Finola Moorhead that, like her earlier Still Murder, follows the adventures of ex-policewoman Margot Gorman. Much more than a formula detective story, the novel is informed by the author's separatist politics and explores the philosophy and relationships of its characters while managing an intriguing plot.

Ø Sarah Walker. Water Colours. Hodder Australia, pb., $16.50, 188 pp.

A young adult's novel from a previously published author. The central first-person narrative voice is convincingly maintained. The story centres on a favourite theme of novels for this age group: the discovery of self through the revelation of a hurtful family secret. The writer retains a strong sense of the narrator's feelings and there is a careful, and welcome, balance between the painfulness of the “truths” she learns and the positive emphasis of the ending.

Ø Stephanie Luke. Harm. Wakefield Press, pb., 215 pp.

The author's note is suggestive of the problems of categorising texts as fiction or autobiography. She beautifully describes how the central character “Anna” enables her to go back into memory in a way that allowed her, as writer, to “break out of this body and tell a story of visions with all their psychotic fictions and terrible truths”: and indeed they are a terrible truths. The text is arranged as a series of passages spoken by different voices - Anna, Sarah, Lucy, Jacob - each offers a counterpoint to the others' views. Anna conveys the exhilaration of what Jacob and others term psychosis: the “short life of a overwound clock”; and the ending finely conveys the sense, not of ambivalence, but of the necessity of a choice - for “normalcy” - that inevitably brings with it the loss of that exhilaration, a loss of the “fingers of God caressing my cheek”.

Ø Hoa Pham. Vixen. Hodder Australia, pb, $21.95, 255 pp.

This novel offers a new form of magic realism to contemporary Australian fiction. The young author is of Vietnamese descent but speaks no Vietnamese. The story plays with a Vietnamese mythical character, the fox fairy who, as the central figure, moves from mid-twentieth-century Vietnam to Australia, where she encounters the south-east Asian past of Australia through the tutelage of an older, resident fox fairy. Some of the dissolution of boundaries between spirit and material world, and the dismissal of any fantasising of the “host world” is reminiscent in places of Beth Yahp's The Crocodile Fury and, hopefully, along with Yahp's work, promises new directions for Australian fiction.

Ø Jennie Drake. Buried Alive: the story of a psychoanalysis. Minerva Press, London, pb., 297 pp.

Jennie Drake is an Australian writer who has worked as therapist and social worker. Buried Alive is a compelling and troubling account, through one woman's experience, of psychoanalysis. An interesting comparison could be made with Margaret Coombs' rather different perspective in The best man for this kind of thing. The immersion in a single perspective contrasts with Luke's use of the different voices in Harm.

Ø Dominique Hecq. The Book of Elsa. Papyrus Publishing, PO Box 7144, Upper Ferntree Gully, Vic. 3156, pb., $16.44, 98 pp.

Readers of AWBR will be familiar with Dominique Hecq's highly individual prose poetry. The Book of Elsa is an elegantly produced volume by Papyrus Press which defeats classification into genre. Chapter headings may give a flavour of the range of references and elusive quality of the writing: “Embabelled”, “Dedalus' daughter”, “The Hungry Lover”, “The City Post-Partum”, ”Mother Worlds”. The fairy-tale narrative imaginatively engages with cultural transitions, from Europe to an imagined quasi Australia.

Children's Picture Book

Ø Julie Hunt; Illus. by Priscilla Nielsen. Away! Away! Roland Harvey Books, hb, $25.20, 32 pp. (full colour illustrations)

This is a deceptively simple and an unusual picture book. Although the publishers recommend it as suitable for children of 5+, elements of it would also be accessible for younger children.

The format is extremely pleasing: clear typeface and quirky, eye-catching colour illustrations that echo the dream-like quality and themes of the story. The story of Zoe the painter and her desire to free a caged cockatoo can be read at a very simple level, but implicit in the narrative is a more subtle questioning of imagination, as Zoe dreams about all the animals stylised in the zoology of suburbia (swans made of car tyres, little concrete eagles …). The story moves between themes of freedom and belonging, culminating with the claiming, by a lost puppy, of the cockatoo's abandoned cage, and the claiming of the puppy by the cockatoo's erstwhile owners. In a satisfying ending reminiscent of Sendak's final page in Where the Wild Things Are, the reader is returned to safety: “the cocky's bowl had been filled with dog biscuits and someone had put a mat beside the cage. There was a word on the mat and the puppy was curled up asleep on the word…”. The last image is of an over-turned cage, a full bowl, and a small dog asleep on a red mat, “HOME”.

Non-fiction

Ø Aileen Moreton-Robinson. Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous women and feminism. University of Queensland Press, pb., $ 22.00, 234 pp.

This book could usefully be read with Maryann Bin Salik's collection of the experiences of Indigenous women in the University, reviewed in this issue of AWBR by Terry Whitebeach. While, like Bin Salik, Moreton-Robinson draws on the voices of Indigenous women themselves, her book is framed more explicitly by a particular politically-charged thesis. She explores the ways in which white Australian feminists have written about Indigenous issues, and claims their appropriation of these issues has actively excluded the perspectives of Indigenous women themselves. The book, therefore, offers a valuable intervention by not only paying attention to those perspectives but also engaging in a theorised discussion of some of the writers whom she regards as forming a dominant and dominating discourse of (white) feminism.

Ø Sally Irwin. Between Heaven and Earth: the life of a mountaineer, Freda du Faur. White Crane Press, PO Box 525, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, pb., $29.90, 380 pp.

This biography gives careful and detailed attention to a life that was remarkable but which could easily be forgotten. Freda du Faur was a proficient mountaineer in New South Wales and New Zealand, from the very early years of the twentieth century. Her story is one of struggle as a woman to engage in what was not only demanding physical work, well beyond the drawing rooms of polite society, but also the privileged masculine sphere in which manliness was achieved and maintained. Further, as a “colonial”, her desire to be first woman in the field was constantly under threat by European contenders. Her initial successes were later tempered by issues related to her sexuality, and by increasing mental problems, leading to her suicide in 1935. Her individual story adds to our record of women who had exceptional abilities which enabled them to achieve relative success but also made them the subject of censure and controversy; it thus increases our understanding of the gender relations of the very recent past.

Ø Edited by Kerry Greenwood. On Murder: True crime writing in Australia. Black Inc, Schwarz Publishing, pb., $21.95, 280 pp.

It is surprising that this is the first collection to review some of the more notorious “true-life” Australian crimes. Greenwood, no mean writer of fictional crime, describes the collection as being informed by a desire to do some justice to the victims. The tone of the articles, therefore, is reflective rather than sensationalist. One effect of reading the eighteen articles is to remove the “shock-horror” effect of journalistic accounts of individual crimes of violence and, in a sense, normalise them: these are, after all, not accounts of monsters but part of the everyday fabric of Australian society. This adds dignity and weight to the victims rather than diminishing them. Some of the articles are republished in an act of literary revival: Michael Gawenda on the Port Arthur shootings, Helen Garner on the trial of Daniel Valerio's murderer. Other, commissioned, articles include Lindy Cameron's interview with the survivor of attempted murder, and Lucy Sussex's historical account of the notorious baby-farmer, Frances Knorr.

Ø Joyce Thorpe Nicholson and Daniel Wrixon Thorpe. A Life of Books: the story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd, 1921-1987. Courtyard Press, PO Box 5093, Middle Park, Victoria 3206, hb., $49.95, 326 pp. (b and w photographs)

Sometimes reviewers are pleasantly surprised by a book: this is one of those occasions. This account of the small publishing business of DW Thorpe is a valuable history in microcosm of the changes in publishing in Australia: from the firm's emergence as a resource for booksellers and stationers to a specialist publisher, particularly respected in the bibliographic field of children's literature, to being taken over by an international publishing house. It is fired by a desire to offer tribute to the founder of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd who was indeed a remarkable man. However, it also offers a wonderful narrative of how a woman in the twentieth century navigated the male world of publishing. The story is enhanced by Joyce Thorpe Nicholson's wit and by her ability to reflect on how her own particular position was at once affected by the prevailing social mores but was also highly individual.

Hecate's Australian Women's Book Review

ISSN 1033-9434		Editor: Barbara Brook Contributing Assistant Editor: Katie Hughes *Photomontage: Set in Stone, Adele Flood*
Volume 12, 2000

Short listings Fiction Ø Finola Moorhead. darkness more visible. Spinifex Press, pb., $24.95, 649 pp. A very interesting new novel from Finola Moorhead that, like her earlier Still Murder, follows the adventures of ex-policewoman Margot Gorman. Much more than a formula detective story, the novel is informed by the author's separatist politics and explores the philosophy and relationships of its characters while managing an intriguing plot. Ø Sarah Walker. Water Colours. Hodder Australia, pb., $16.50, 188 pp. A young adult's novel from a previously published author. The central first-person narrative voice is convincingly maintained. The story centres on a favourite theme of novels for this age group: the discovery of self through the revelation of a hurtful family secret. The writer retains a strong sense of the narrator's feelings and there is a careful, and welcome, balance between the painfulness of the “truths” she learns and the positive emphasis of the ending. Ø Stephanie Luke. Harm. Wakefield Press, pb., 215 pp. The author's note is suggestive of the problems of categorising texts as fiction or autobiography. She beautifully describes how the central character “Anna” enables her to go back into memory in a way that allowed her, as writer, to “break out of this body and tell a story of visions with all their psychotic fictions and terrible truths”: and indeed they are a terrible truths. The text is arranged as a series of passages spoken by different voices - Anna, Sarah, Lucy, Jacob - each offers a counterpoint to the others' views. Anna conveys the exhilaration of what Jacob and others term psychosis: the “short life of a overwound clock”; and the ending finely conveys the sense, not of ambivalence, but of the necessity of a choice - for “normalcy” - that inevitably brings with it the loss of that exhilaration, a loss of the “fingers of God caressing my cheek”. Ø Hoa Pham. Vixen. Hodder Australia, pb, $21.95, 255 pp. This novel offers a new form of magic realism to contemporary Australian fiction. The young author is of Vietnamese descent but speaks no Vietnamese. The story plays with a Vietnamese mythical character, the fox fairy who, as the central figure, moves from mid-twentieth-century Vietnam to Australia, where she encounters the south-east Asian past of Australia through the tutelage of an older, resident fox fairy. Some of the dissolution of boundaries between spirit and material world, and the dismissal of any fantasising of the “host world” is reminiscent in places of Beth Yahp's The Crocodile Fury and, hopefully, along with Yahp's work, promises new directions for Australian fiction. Ø Jennie Drake. Buried Alive: the story of a psychoanalysis. Minerva Press, London, pb., 297 pp. Jennie Drake is an Australian writer who has worked as therapist and social worker. Buried Alive is a compelling and troubling account, through one woman's experience, of psychoanalysis. An interesting comparison could be made with Margaret Coombs' rather different perspective in The best man for this kind of thing. The immersion in a single perspective contrasts with Luke's use of the different voices in Harm. Ø Dominique Hecq. The Book of Elsa. Papyrus Publishing, PO Box 7144, Upper Ferntree Gully, Vic. 3156, pb., $16.44, 98 pp. Readers of AWBR will be familiar with Dominique Hecq's highly individual prose poetry. The Book of Elsa is an elegantly produced volume by Papyrus Press which defeats classification into genre. Chapter headings may give a flavour of the range of references and elusive quality of the writing: “Embabelled”, “Dedalus' daughter”, “The Hungry Lover”, “The City Post-Partum”, ”Mother Worlds”. The fairy-tale narrative imaginatively engages with cultural transitions, from Europe to an imagined quasi Australia. Children's Picture Book Ø Julie Hunt; Illus. by Priscilla Nielsen. Away! Away! Roland Harvey Books, hb, $25.20, 32 pp. (full colour illustrations) This is a deceptively simple and an unusual picture book. Although the publishers recommend it as suitable for children of 5+, elements of it would also be accessible for younger children. The format is extremely pleasing: clear typeface and quirky, eye-catching colour illustrations that echo the dream-like quality and themes of the story. The story of Zoe the painter and her desire to free a caged cockatoo can be read at a very simple level, but implicit in the narrative is a more subtle questioning of imagination, as Zoe dreams about all the animals stylised in the zoology of suburbia (swans made of car tyres, little concrete eagles …). The story moves between themes of freedom and belonging, culminating with the claiming, by a lost puppy, of the cockatoo's abandoned cage, and the claiming of the puppy by the cockatoo's erstwhile owners. In a satisfying ending reminiscent of Sendak's final page in Where the Wild Things Are, the reader is returned to safety: “the cocky's bowl had been filled with dog biscuits and someone had put a mat beside the cage. There was a word on the mat and the puppy was curled up asleep on the word…”. The last image is of an over-turned cage, a full bowl, and a small dog asleep on a red mat, “HOME”. Non-fiction Ø Aileen Moreton-Robinson. Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous women and feminism. University of Queensland Press, pb., $ 22.00, 234 pp. This book could usefully be read with Maryann Bin Salik's collection of the experiences of Indigenous women in the University, reviewed in this issue of AWBR by Terry Whitebeach. While, like Bin Salik, Moreton-Robinson draws on the voices of Indigenous women themselves, her book is framed more explicitly by a particular politically-charged thesis. She explores the ways in which white Australian feminists have written about Indigenous issues, and claims their appropriation of these issues has actively excluded the perspectives of Indigenous women themselves. The book, therefore, offers a valuable intervention by not only paying attention to those perspectives but also engaging in a theorised discussion of some of the writers whom she regards as forming a dominant and dominating discourse of (white) feminism. Ø Sally Irwin. Between Heaven and Earth: the life of a mountaineer, Freda du Faur. White Crane Press, PO Box 525, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, pb., $29.90, 380 pp. This biography gives careful and detailed attention to a life that was remarkable but which could easily be forgotten. Freda du Faur was a proficient mountaineer in New South Wales and New Zealand, from the very early years of the twentieth century. Her story is one of struggle as a woman to engage in what was not only demanding physical work, well beyond the drawing rooms of polite society, but also the privileged masculine sphere in which manliness was achieved and maintained. Further, as a “colonial”, her desire to be first woman in the field was constantly under threat by European contenders. Her initial successes were later tempered by issues related to her sexuality, and by increasing mental problems, leading to her suicide in 1935. Her individual story adds to our record of women who had exceptional abilities which enabled them to achieve relative success but also made them the subject of censure and controversy; it thus increases our understanding of the gender relations of the very recent past. Ø Edited by Kerry Greenwood. On Murder: True crime writing in Australia. Black Inc, Schwarz Publishing, pb., $21.95, 280 pp. It is surprising that this is the first collection to review some of the more notorious “true-life” Australian crimes. Greenwood, no mean writer of fictional crime, describes the collection as being informed by a desire to do some justice to the victims. The tone of the articles, therefore, is reflective rather than sensationalist. One effect of reading the eighteen articles is to remove the “shock-horror” effect of journalistic accounts of individual crimes of violence and, in a sense, normalise them: these are, after all, not accounts of monsters but part of the everyday fabric of Australian society. This adds dignity and weight to the victims rather than diminishing them. Some of the articles are republished in an act of literary revival: Michael Gawenda on the Port Arthur shootings, Helen Garner on the trial of Daniel Valerio's murderer. Other, commissioned, articles include Lindy Cameron's interview with the survivor of attempted murder, and Lucy Sussex's historical account of the notorious baby-farmer, Frances Knorr. Ø Joyce Thorpe Nicholson and Daniel Wrixon Thorpe. A Life of Books: the story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd, 1921-1987. Courtyard Press, PO Box 5093, Middle Park, Victoria 3206, hb., $49.95, 326 pp. (b and w photographs) Sometimes reviewers are pleasantly surprised by a book: this is one of those occasions. This account of the small publishing business of DW Thorpe is a valuable history in microcosm of the changes in publishing in Australia: from the firm's emergence as a resource for booksellers and stationers to a specialist publisher, particularly respected in the bibliographic field of children's literature, to being taken over by an international publishing house. It is fired by a desire to offer tribute to the founder of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd who was indeed a remarkable man. However, it also offers a wonderful narrative of how a woman in the twentieth century navigated the male world of publishing. The story is enhanced by Joyce Thorpe Nicholson's wit and by her ability to reflect on how her own particular position was at once affected by the prevailing social mores but was also highly individual.