Old North Melbourne, by Fiona Gatt

North Melbourne’s First Fifty Years

Fiona Gatt’s history of the inner city suburb of North Melbourne covers its first fifty years, from the 1850s through to 1900. The area has long been noted for its working class roots, and Gatt provides the data to show it was a refuge for the poor and unskilled. Notable was the strong presence of the Irish working class, often living precariously and on intermittent wages. Due to the hardships of the times, alcohol abuse was prevalent, a way of dulling life’s miseries. An extraordinary amount of pubs - seemingly one on every corner - littered the area. 

It wasn’t all desperate living, however. North Melbourne had its captains of industry, creating businesses and factories, and many were successful, also putting themselves forward in civic life and contributing to the suburb’s politics. Gatt also shows that a large percentage of women were successful at business, running shops or industries from home. Of note was local feminist Brettena Smyth, who agitated for women’s right to vote and make their own reproductive choices.

North Melbourne evolved in a haphazard way during this period. There was no building code, so people simply knocked up whatever they felt fit - in a lot of cases tin sheds or shoddily put together wooden houses, not built to last. It wasn’t until the 1890s that building codes would be introduced. Street life could also be hazardous, especially with the rise of larikinism during economic hard times - swarms of bored male youths stirring up trouble. Sometimes it wasn’t safe to leave the house.

Old North Melbourne is a fascinating, meticulously researched history that chronicles North Melbourne’s economic, cultural and topographical roots. North Melbournites will be charmed to see recognisable street names pop up again and again. 

A welcome addition to the historic literature on Melbourne.

Old North Melbourne, by Fiona Gatt. Published by Australian Scholarly Publishing. $44. 

OCT 2025

Lady Living Alone, by Norah Lofts

A woman too frightened to be alone comes to regret the company she keeps.

Norah Lofts (1904-1983) was a British writer who specialised in historical fiction, but wrote occasional nail biting thrillers under the pseudonym Peter Curtis. Lady Living Alone was first published in 1945 and here gets a new printing from the British Library Women Writers series. 

Penelope Shadow is temperamentally fragile, almost timid. She’s not cut out for the practicalities of life and is a bit of a dreamer. One area of her life where she’s fully competent, however, is as a novelist. After a few false starts, she begins churning out best selling fiction. The money is soon coming in. But there is one problem. A single woman, she is forced to move out of her half-sister’s house and find her own accommodation. She has the money to buy a handsome house of her own, but is terrified of being alone in it. It’s her achilles heel. To try and assuage her fears, she hires staff, women to look after the housework, but they tend to leave. 

Then Penelope meets the young Irishman, Terence Munce. He is working as a menial at a rooming house she stays at. In a rash moment she asks him to come and work for her. Everything turns out smoothly. Penelope is back to hammering away at her typewriter, while the ever attentive Terry takes care of everything. Things take an unexpected turn when Terry professes to love Penelope and the two get married. All is well in this new if surprising arrangement, until Terry starts draining Penelope’s purse of funds at a great rate of knots. Ever forgiving, she makes allowances for Terry, until secrets emerge about her husband’s life and Penelope feels her life is imperilled.

Lady Living Alone is a solidly written domestic drama about a vulnerable and too eager-to-please woman and her young, seemingly perfect but scheming husband. The tension is wonderfully sustained right up to the last page and the novel gives vivid glimpses of life in 1930s Britain (the book is set in the previous decade to which it was published). The steadily darkening plot will remind readers of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and Elizabeth Von Arnim’s Vera, two novels about duplicitious, villainous husbands. 

A sturdy, page-turning thriller with valuable insights into British society in the 1930s.

Lady Living Alone, by Norah Lofts. Published by British Library Publishing. $22.99

OCT 2025

Suspicion, by Seicho Matsumoto

A beautiful woman with a violent past is accused of killing her husband. But did she really do it?

Onizuka Kumako has a shady past. She hangs out with the local yakuza (crime gang) and has done prison time for stealing and assault. She has an imposing, almost glamorous look, and instills fear in those who have to deal with her. When she meets rich and lonely widower Shirakawa Fukutaro, the two are soon married. Then the unimaginable happens. One rainy night their car veers off course and into the harbour. The husband dies, but the wife manages to escape. But how? Many questions surround the case and the media has whipped up a storm of theories, all pointing the blame at Onizuka Kumako. It’s clear she’s guilty, or is she?

At the head of these efforts to convict Kumako is Moichi Akitani, a jumpy, nervous journalist who is terrified at the prospect of her release. A freed Kumako, he is sure, would turn the yakuza onto him and his family. As he endlessly ruminates on the possibility of the suspect’s innocence, he whips himself up into a near frenzy of fear. 

First published in 1982, this short Japanese thriller is translated for the first time into English. Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992) is a hugely influential figure in Japanese literature, credited with popularising the crime genre in Japan. In this moody and taut novella, the pace never relents. Its psychological aspects, specifically the sharp portraits of the journalist Moichi Akitani and several lawyers working on the case, make for compelling fiction. The central character, Onizuka Kumako, who the reader never meets directly but is described by those in her orbit, hovers like a menacing presence, both attractive and repulsive. The only criticism that can be levelled at this gut-wrenching crime tale is that it ends too quickly.

Translated by Jesse Kirkwood

Suspicion, by Seicho Matsumoto. Published by Penguin. $28.99

SEP 25

Tree. Table. Book., by Lois Lowry

When an elderly neighbour suffering memory loss is to be put into care, her eleven-year-old neighbour stages an intervention.

Sophie Winslow is eleven-years-old, and her best friend Sophie Gershowitz is 88-years-old. They are neighbors and greatly enjoy each other’s company. If only life could go on as it always has, but changes are afoot. Sophie’s son, Aaron, is concerned about her failing memory and is planning to move her into assisted care. The younger Sophie is alarmed at this, and hatches a plan to prove Sophie Gershowitz’s memory is just fine. She starts to test Sophie’s memory, making her create memorable stories around particular words. And so the younger Sophie starts to learn about Sophie Gershowitz’s traumatic childhood in Poland during the Second World War. 

Lois Lowry is an award winning American children’s author. Tree. Table. Book. is a gentle story about painful change. It has a light tone with comic touches, coming in the form of Sophie’s friend Ralpie and seven-year-old mini-genius Oliver who they often look after. Realistic and full of heart, this is a story that celebrates life - the bitter and the sweet.

Tree. Table. Book., by Lois Lowry. Published by HarperCollins. $17.99

SEP 25

A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir, by Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern's insightful and revealing memoir.

Jacinda Ardern was raised a Mormon but grew more and more at odds with her church’s teachings. How could she be pro gay rights and abortion and yet keep faith with her religious upbringing? Ardern loved the church and its people, but this tension between personal belief and religious moral codes would cause an identity crisis. Who was she? Painfully, after much struggle Ardern left her faith and became a warrior for progressive politics. That road was not an easy one. Filled with self-doubts and more than susceptible to imposter syndrome, New Zealand’s future prime minister was nudged, almost pushed, into leadership roles. It was a surprise for the reluctant politician to find herself prime minister, but once there, she hoped to govern with kindness and compassion.
​
A Different Kind of Power is indeed a different kind of political memoir. It tells a story of vulnerability and inner-conflict, rather than a myth-making march to power. The book is refreshingly devoid of ego and political preaching, and offers an array of surprising insights told with clarity and humour. Jacinda Ardern’s memoir opens a fresh window on the possibilities of politics beyond the usual grind of point scoring and confected conflict.  

A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir, by Jacinda Ardern. Published by Penguin. $55

SEP 25

The Dilemmas of Working Women, by Fumio Yamamoto

A quirky and enjoyable collection of five tales.

In 2001 Japanese writer Fumio Yamamoto won the Naoki Prize in literature for The Dilemmas of Working Women, a collection of five novellas each about sixty pages long. English readers can now enjoy this Japanese classic some twenty-five years after it was first published in this enjoyable translation by Brian Bergstrom.

Each of the stories in this collection concentrates on a woman’s financial and emotional dilemmas. Izumi bounces around job prospects while hooking up with an old work buddy; Haruka is recovering from cancer surgery but finds those around her impatient with her inability to move on; Kato works at a convenience store and must negotiate tricky workplace politics; Mito has a complicated relationship with her boyfriend and Sumie is a free spirit who reads fortunes. 

Fumio Yamamoto writes in a simple, addictive prose about everyday struggles: wanting to be understood, trying to find meaningful work, figuring out if a relationship is worth pursuing, coping with difficult family members. There is an existential quality to Yamamoto’s work, as her characters cycle through relationships, career choices and social roles looking in vain to establish meaning in their lives. A welcome addition to Japanese fiction in translation. 

The Dilemmas of Working Women, by Fumio Yamamoto. Published by Virago. $32.99

SEP 25

Murder at the Castle: A Miss Merkel Mystery, by David Safier

Angela Merkel makes her fictional debut as village sleuth in this good natured cozy crime series.

Angela Merkel, ex-German Chancellor, has retired to the rural village of Klein-Freudenstadt (“little happy town”). After years of gruelling public service, she’s looking forward to creating a new life for herself with husband Achim and their little pug, Putin. As the couple make tentative steps to merge with the local community, attending wine festivals and markets, they find themselves at the centre of a murder mystery. Baron von Baugenwitz, owner of the village castle, has been found slumped over a table dead in the dungeon. Angela, who is used to solving problems, can’t resist this one, despite the need for her to keep a low profile due to her political past. As the mystery proceeds, a cast of suspects is introduced: an angry ex-wfie, an angry current wife, a surly, wise-cracking daughter, a cop, a far-right fruit seller and a tour guide. Danger is ever present, however, and Angela must evade an angry killer who knows she is on their tail.

Murder at the Castle is the first in a cozy crime series by German author David Safier. Readers may wonder how credible a fictionalised Angela Merkel would be, but Safier does an admirable job of creating a likable yet slightly offbeat ex-Chancellor. The novel is mostly an affectionate portrait of a devoted middle-aged couple, structured around a classic whodunnit. The plot is interwoven with plenty of humour, references to Merkel’s political career and some 18th century German history. All up, a warm hearted, entertaining frolic.  

Translated by Jamie Bulloch

Murder at the Castle: A Miss Merkel Mystery, by David Safier. Published by HarperCollins. $32.99

August 2025

The Hollow Girl, by Lyn Yeowart

Editor and novelist Lyn Yeowart returns with a highly addictive new thriller. 

It’s 1961, regional Victoria. Near the city of Horsham is Harrowford Hall, a notorious and shame ridden home for girls who find themselves pregnant out of wedlock. It’s run by the tough-as-nails Matron, Mrs Denise Montague. She has little sympathy for her charges, and treats them to Dickensian conditions. One of her sidekicks, nurse Stella Chapman, is equally hard on the girls. When fourteen-year-old Jane McEvoy becomes pregnant, her mother has a meltdown and at their doctor’s recommendation, sends her off to Harrowford Hall. The adults hope the whole affair can be covered up with some concocted story about visiting a sick relative and no-one need ever find out about the pregnancy. But Jane’s life soon turns into a living hell. 

Fast forward to 1973 and nurse Stella Chapman’s body is found. She’s been murdered, just days before Harrowford Hall had closed its doors for good. Detective Sergeant Eleanor Smith, on her first murder case in which she has to prove her capability to her misogynist supervisor, is assigned to the case. But as events unfold it turns out not to be a single murder that needs solving, but a pandora's box of secrets and lies. 

Lyn Yeowart’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut thriller, The Silent Listener, is a brilliant page-turner that maintains its atmosphere of suspense and dread right up to the very end. The plot is expertly designed like a ticking time bomb, with breathtaking twists and turns. Based on extensive research and first-person testimony, it’s also an angry indictment on the appalling treatment of young women in the past and the culture of misogyny that enabled it. The seriousness of the book’s themes is leavened with some comic moments, notably the dialogue between hardboiled Detective Eleaonor Smith and her novice assistant constable.

A stunning thriller that also addresses outrageous historical wrongs. 

The Hollow Girl, by Lyn Yeowart. Published by Penguin. $34.99

August 2025

The Usual Desire to Kill, by Camilla Barnes

Two daughters must deal with their eccentric, aging parents.

Dutiful daughter Miranda has her patience stretched trying to keep an eye on her aging, rather eccentric parents. They moved to rural France years ago and now live on a run down mini farm. The house is in a terrible state and they live on dodgy food from the freezer. Her sister Charlotte, with whom Miranda has a rocky relationship, endeavours to help out. Even so, Miranda confesses to the “usual desire to kill” both her mother and father. 

The Usual Desire to Kill is Camilla Barnes’s debut novel (she is the niece of famed British writer Julian Barnes.) What she presents here is a totally original take on dealing with elderly parents (the novel mostly circles around the mother’s pending hip replacement operation.) Barnes opts for an innovative structure, with the novel written in the first person, interspersed with email correspondence and an earlier exchange of letters between the mother and her mystery friend, Kitty. The great joy of the book is Barnes’s pitch perfect dialogue between the idiosyncratic parents, which many a reader will recognise. A life affirming novel written with warmth and love, despite the protagonist’s parricidal fantasies.

The Usual Desire to Kill, by Camilla Barnes. Published by Scribner. $35

July 2025

Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work, by Sarah Wynn-Williams

The inside story of Facebook from a former employee.

​A former New Zealand diplomat with extensive experience in international affairs, Sarah Wynn-Williams early on saw that as Facebook expanded globally, it would find itself in moral and political trouble. She envisaged a role for herself in helping Facebook navigate these perilous waters and made a pitch to its leadership team. Her ideas and vision didn’t impress at first, but the times would soon suit her, and a position was eventually offered. 

Wynn-Williams started work at Facebook in 2011 and would eventually become the company’s global public policy director. The position would take her around the world to many important summits, hobnobbing with business leaders and prime ministers. Careless People, a memoir of her six years at Facebook, is notable for its coruscating portraits of former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. She also claims that her supervisor, Joel Kaplan, sexually harassed her over many years. 

In the author’s telling, Facebook had an expand-at-all-costs culture that had little to no regard for the harm it caused, turning a blind eye to the help it indirectly gave authoritarian regimes. A gripping if stomach-turning read on corporate greed and how power deranges.

Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work, by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Published by MacMillan. $36.99

July 2025

The Image of Her, by Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir published her final novel Les Belle Images (“Beautiful Images”) in 1966, and it was translated into English in 1968 by Patrick O’Brian. It is here given a new translation by Lauren Elkin and a reworked title, The Image of Her.

Laurence works as a copywriter, promoting products that make middle class life comfortable. She has a near perfect husband and two young daughters. While there is some friction caused in her personal life by having a lover on the side, this is resolved without too much drama by calling the whole relationship off. All should be well, but something keeps niggling at Laurence, a dreadful feeling of impending doom. At one point she wonders if she will always have this feeling of “stones in her chest and sulfurous clouds in her head.” She watches wars on the television and reads about disasters in newspapers while safely cocooned at home. It doesn’t seem right, but such is the communications technology of modern life. While Laurence tries to keep her emotional boat from capsizing, she finds trouble brewing in her family. Her mother, Dominique, is having trouble with her second husband. He has decided to leave her for a younger woman, causing Dominique to go into a full meltdown. And closer to home, her ten-year-old daughter, Catherine, has confessed to feeling despair at the state of the world. Her husband insists on therapy for their daughter as a stock standard response, but Laurence feels differently, in the end quite vehemently, that despair is the only rational response to the world.

Written in crystal clear prose and superbly organised, Simone de Beauvoir triumphs in creating the literary version of a panic attack. We watch as the protagonist, Laurence, feels herself slowly swallowed up and suffocated by life’s cruelty and carelessness. Friends and family tax her emotionally with their suffering, while she  hopelessly tries to forge her own path ahead, to escape their folly. At one stage she thinks her easy-going, philosophical father is the model to emulate, but she ultimately finds his peace of mind is built on illusions and self-deceptions.   

Wonderfully absorbing, and written with a genius’s uncanny gift, The Image of Her is a rare literary experience.

The Image of Her, by Simone de Beauvoir. Published by Vintage. $34.99

June 2025

The Passengers on the Hankyu Line, by Hiro Arikawa

 

A steady stream of strangers straighten out their lives while travelling the Hankyu Train Line.   

In the author’s preface to Hiro Arikawa’s The Passengers of the Hankyu Line, we learn that Hankyu is a private railway that services the area around Kyoto in Japan. Arikawa concentrates her story on the Imazu Line, a lesser known line within Hankyu. A loose collection of characters bump into and interact with each other as they commute on the line, sometimes their fates coming to intertwine. 

Shoko is dealing with the grief of being a jilted bride. Misa, a student, is having trouble with her violent boyfriend. Tokie and her granddaughter discuss the merits of getting a dog. Kei’ichi in an accidental encounter meets Miho and the two tentatively move towards a relationship. Yasue, a housewife unhappy with her friendship circle, decides to step back from their expensive outings and lunches to concentrate on her family. 

First published in 2008 and now translated into English by Allison Markin Powell, The Passengers on the Hankyu Line is a gently written novel about everyday lives and where they intersect in public places. If there’s a theme, you could say it’s the kindness of strangers. Sometimes people behave badly in public - there are scenes of loud school girls and boisterous women grabbing seats - but in the long run humanity tends towards kindness and loving relationships. 

A pleasurable, companionable read that will make you feel that despite life’s troubles, all is good with the world.

The Passengers on the Hankyu Line, by Hiro Arikawa. Published by Doubleday. $34.99

June 2025

Pernickety Boo, by Sally Gardner

A talking umbrella with magic powers finds his forever home.

When a muddle-headed wizard unwittingly bungles a spell, he brings to life an umbrella. Pernickety Boo - a talking dog’s head attached to an umbrella canopy - finds himself abandoned by the forgetful wizard to a lost property depot. He languishes there for several years until he meets Sally Moonshine, a young girl who takes an immediate liking to Pernickety Boo. He moves in with Sally and her two Mums, meeting several interesting characters along the way, notably the cat Jimjam and a horse named Crackers. Pernickety and Sally experience many adventures, especially once Pernickety figures out how to use his time travelling skills. But danger looms when brattish Billy Turpin decides he wants Pernickety Boo for himself.

Best selling children’s author Sally Gardner has written a winning story full of whimsy and clever nonsense. Think Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. All of the novel’s interlocking parts shouldn’t really work - a talking umbrella that even the adults see as perfectly normal, talking cats that performed as circus acts in previous lives, plus a host of other absurdities - yet Sally Gardner has the magic touch and creates a bubbly, effervescent tonic out of this seeming chaos. 

A book sure to delight young and old readers alike. 

Pernickety Boo, by Sally Gardner. Published by HarperCollins. $19.99

June 2025

Murder on the Marlow Belle, by Robert Thorogood

Septuagenarian sleuth Judith Potts and her two middle-aged sidekicks Suzie Harris and Becks Starling find themselves drawn into another Marlow murder mystery in the fourth installment of this much loved cozy crime series.

There is trouble brewing at the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society (MADS). Oliver Berestford, a divisive figure among the players, has organised a boat trip on the Marlow Belle, a snazzy vintage cruiser with cabins below. Only a select few have been chosen to attend the trip: Verity, Oliver’s wife, Lizzie, a former MADS member but now famous actress, Toby, a protege and Duncan, an old friend. When half way through the trip Oliver goes missing, it’s a complete mystery as to what has happened. His body is later found washed up with two bullet holes. What on earth could have happened to him? More to the point, who was out to get him?

The fourth book in The Marlow Murder Club series is great page-turning fun. Robert Thorogood’s ability to write a compelling whodunnit, shot through with wit, humour and heart, shows no sign of flagging. The twists and turns in the story, coupled with the wonderful characters - the pushy Judith, the blunt and outspoken dog walker Suzie and the prim and proper vicar’s wife Becks - make for a brilliant entertainment. The final set piece - with the ultimate crime reveal happening in the middle of a production of The Importance of Being Earnest - is clever and just a bit mad. Admittedly some aspects of the story stretch credulity, yet the overall journey is so enjoyable that these minor quibbles can be overlooked.

An irresistible romp with an endearing cast of characters.

Murder on the Marlow Belle, by Robert Thorogood. Published by HQ Fiction. $32.99

June 2025

A Curtain Twitcher's Book of Murder, by Gay Marris

Gay Marris gives murder the comedy-horror treatment in this entertaining debut.

​It’s 1960s, Swinging London. Atbara Avenue is a cosy yet nosy street, one where everyone knows everyone else’s business, built towards the end of Queen Victoria’s reign. At one end there is a corner shop and at the other a church, St Francis in the Fields. The street has become somewhat gaudy in its aspect, as contemporary decorative fashions, with all their ephemeral novelties, have taken prominence. Despite its surface calm, Atbara Avenue is soon shocked by the apparent suicide death of Pauline Dollimore, unhappy daughter of faded  songbird Muriel Dollimore, with whom she lived. As the story progresses, we are introduced to more unusual characters - a set of rival twins, a local beauty who goes missing, a weird girl who collects animals - many of whom meet untimely deaths. Weaving in and out of this bizarre cast is the stiff-upper-lip vicar’s wife Deidre O’Reilly, and her eternally bemused husband, Desmond. They remain cheerful and untouched by the subterranean oozings and slitherings of Atbara Avenue, carrying on their trivial, self-satisfied life while the worst of human depravity unfolds around them.

A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder is English author Gay Marris’s debut novel. (Interestingly Marris is a retired scientist with an interest in insect ecology and parasites.) The book doesn’t work so much as a novel, rather it’s more a collection of bizarre tales, with well drawn characters and compelling plot lines. The only continuing thread is  the indomitable vicar and his wife, steady in their unflappable foolishness.

Gay Marris’s crime debut is a total original, almost a Gothic comedy-horror. The best analogy is perhaps the novels of American Shirley Jackson, noted for their macabre yet comic tone. A delicious treat for those with a wicked sense of humour.

A Curtain Twitcher's Book of Murder, by Gay Marris. Published by Bedford Square Fiction. $32.99

April 25

Twilight Sleep, by Edith Wharton

Twilight Sleep is a 1927 novel by American writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Edith Wharton. It is here republished in a lovely new jacket by Smith & Taylor Classics.

Pauline Manford is married to Dexter Manford, and they have a daughter, Nona. Pauline also has a son, Jim, by a previous husband, Arthur Wyant. Jim is married to the flighty flapper girl, Lita, who is growing restless with her marriage. Much concern in the family circles around keeping this marriage together. At the head of these efforts is the indomitable Pauline, who has endless reserves of energy and optimism. However, despite Pauline’s outward exuberance, her wellbeing is heavily reliant on a mixture of wellness treatments and popular self-help strategies from an army of personal gurus. 

While much of the family’s focus is on Jim and Lita’s marriage, the eminently sensible daughter Nona is having private troubles of her own. She is in love with Stanley Heuston, an unhappily married man whose wife won’t allow a divorce. Living in the midst of so much material comfort, a deep irony is at play as Nona finds her life spiritually empty. 

While mostly satirical in tone, the story builds up to a violent climax that leaves Wharton’s cast of characters stumbling around for answers, but unable to find any. 


Reading through this 100 year old novel, it’s striking how closely it echoes many of today’s fad and obsessions. The action focuses on affluent middle-class life, and how the very well off spend (or waste) their time. Wharton’s razor sharp observations of the vanities and inanities of the rich almost reads as a companion piece to American philosopher Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), a book that dissected middle class tastes, manners and self delusions. The novel’s main theme, it could be argued, is how the idle rich spend their time pursuing useless busy work. Many times in the text Wharton has her characters lament how empty days spent trying to relax only results in more stress.

“Certainly, no amount of "mental deep-breathing," and all the other exercises in serenity, could combat the nervous apprehension produced by this breathless New York life. Today she really felt it to be too much for her: she leaned back and closed her lids with a sigh. But she was jerked back to consciousness by the traffic-control signal, which had immobilized the motor just when every moment was so precious. The result of every one's being in such a hurry to get everywhere was that nobody could get anywhere. She looked across the triple row of motors in line with hers, and saw in each (as if in a vista of mirrors) an expensively dressed woman like herself, leaning forward in the same attitude of repressed impatience, the same nervous frown of hurry on her brow."

"Oh, if only she could remember to relax!”

A witty and rather savage portrait of American wealth in the 1920s.

Twilight Sleep, by Edith Wharton. Published by Smith and Taylor Classics. $29.99

APRIL 25

Help Wanted, by Adelle Waldman.

 

A funny and poignant look at the lives of American retail workers.

Town Square is a big box store in upstate New York, one that sells everything from organic food to electronics. Team Movement is a group of employees who unpack and put out on display all of the store’s goods. It’s an arduous job, involving lots of lifting and running around the store. The hours are not good and conditions worse. Work is precarious, with employees always after more hours, while finding their entitlements and perks being eroded over time. There is lots of bitching and sniping among the workers as they strive, uselessly, to try and improve their lot. At one stage in the novel, as the workers plot, they even laugh uproariously at the hopeless idea of starting a union.

An opportunity to improve workplace conditions happens when the hated middle manager, Meredith, is slated for promotion. The members of Team Movement plot to get her advanced. The idea is that if Meredith is promoted to Store Manager, they can get her of their backs. Spearheading this effort is Val, a plucky go-getter. She signs everyone up to the plan to give excellent feedback about Meredith’s performance when corporate’s head honchos visit the store to conduct employee interviews, and also decide to sabotage her rival Anita’s chances for the position. (Her display work is ruthlessly messed up before the corporate visit.). There is one dissenter, the surly Nicole, who thinks Meredith should die in a ditch. But eventually she too is convinced to come on board.

Val’s strategy is on course to succeed, when things suddenly go pear shaped. Milo, an efficient worker with anger management issues, decides to tell corporate that Meredith is a drug pusher (she offers caffeine tablets during the night shifts). The corporate interviewers become alarmed and must get to the bottom of things. Further complications are thrown into the mix when a store manager also has some interesting revelations about Meredith. 

Help Wanted is Adelle Waldman’s second novel. Her first, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., appeared in 2013. Waldman did a stint as a night worker at a big box store and turned her experiences into a novel. What she offers here is a witty and perceptive satire on modern corporate America, taking a scalpel to crushing contemporary workplace culture. There are plenty of laugh out loud moments and clever zingers. While Help Wanted  most certainly presents a theatre of the ridiculous, there is a deeply humane undercurrent. All of Team Movement’s workers are given fully fleshed out back stories, dealing with lost love, rejection, financial struggles, the difficulties of raising children while working multiple jobs, and the constant drumbeat of money troubles. As someone who has worked in the corporate world, I can attest to the book’s psychological accuracy: the manipulation, spin and stress. There is an aura of terrible impotence as the workers try to improve their lot, the irony being that they decide to try and get someone they hate promoted, while laughing off any idea of starting a union.

Help Wanted explains the desperate lives of America’s poorly paid workers, showing how the middle class has been hollowed out. Given the current grievances of America’s poor and overworked, it probably goes someway to explaining Trumpism. 

A startling portrait of corporate America and how it crushes people.

Help Wanted, by Adelle Waldman. Published by Serpent's Tail. $24.99

APRIL 25

May You Have Delicious Meals, by Junko Takase

 

Three office workers find themselves caught in some weird office politics.

Ashikawa is a sweet natured young woman who likes to bake treats for her co-workers, sickly sweet cakes and tarts with intricate icing work and dainty decorations. Her arrival at her office job with these elaborate confections are almost mini-events. Co-workers gather around and await specially cut slices and must then ooh and ahh at every mouthful.

Nitani is in a half-hearted relationship with Ashikawa. He likes to eat instant noodles, almost as a staple. He hates to fuss with food and prefers the quickest route to a full stomach. Despite his relationship status with Ashikawa, he finds her annoying. Worse still, he secretly doesn’t like her sweet treats she bakes for the office. 

Oshio, another workmate, often hangs out with Nitani for beers and is the complete opposite of Ashikawa. In fact, she can’t stand Ashikawa. The truth is, Ashikawa is high maintenance, and she is coddled by her co-workers, receiving special treatment. She regularly goes home early, or has sick days, due to recurring headaches or simple bouts of fatigue. Co-workers hover around her, asking that she’s alright, even suggesting she go home. 

The irony is, Ashikawa is portrayed as the weak one, yet she somehow, innocently enough, manages to manipulate those around her.

Junko Takase is an award winning Japanese novelist. May You Have Delicious Meals, as the title suggests, is a quirky, out-of-the box look at office work and the interpersonal politics it spurs. This is a not too happy crew of workers, grudgingly attending ‘fun’ office lunches and other get-togethers, but not unhappy enough to seek work elsewhere or make serious career changes. They are trapped in comfortable but uninspiring, unambitious lives. This may sound bland enough, but Takase lifts the subject matter with brilliant comic touches and a careful anatomising of modern workplace culture and manners.

A strange, oddball little novel for readers of Convenience Store Woman and There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job. 

May You Have Delicious Meals, by Junko Takase. Translated by Morgan Giles. Published by Hutchinson Heinemann. $34.99

March 25

Eurotrash, by Christian Kracht

 

An eighty year old with a dark, wartime past goes on a quirky road trip with her son. 

​In this work of autofiction, narrator Christian Kracht, famous for his novel Faserland as well as other works, reunites with his octogenarian mother on a road trip of sorts through the Swiss Alps. Middle-aged Christian’s mother - we don’t learn her name - has invested heavily in the arms industry and reaped a whirlwind. Taking her medication with good swigs of vodka,  and sporting a colostomy bag that needs frequent changing, she has withdrawn tens of thousands from her bank account and stuffed the cash in cheap plastic bags, determined to indiscriminately give it away. 

As the two take taxi rides around the Swiss Alps, they go over their past together, trudging through a murky and shameful family history. Christian’s grandfather - his mother’s father - was a member of the Nazi’s SS. 

Eurotrash is a dark, rancid comedy about wealth and privilege. Kracht provides a razor sharp skewering of decadent, self-regarding elites, whose money has come from a long line of misery. There is a sense of ennui and terribly bad taste that goes hand in hand with this ruling class, who don’t do introspection. Rather they live gaudy lives of depressing excess. Worse still, when their pasts are excavated the skeletons of fascism and dirty capitalism are found. 

Christian Kracht is a Swiss writer. Eurotrash was first published in 2021 and now gets an English translation by Daniel Bowles. A novel that is short and acerbic, with a powerful underlying morality.

Eurotrash, by Christian Kracht. Translated by Daniel Bowles. Published by Serpent's Tail. $26.99

March 25

Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler

 

A middle-aged woman experiences her daughter’s wedding as an emotional roller coaster

Sixty-something Gail Baines has a lot going on in her life. Instead of being in line for a promotion as school principal, she’s been sidelined by a complete stranger. In fact, she’s been asked to quit her position as deputy altogether. Rubbing salt into the wound, her boss has told her she has poor people skills. This discombobulating news comes the day before her daughter Debbie’s wedding. Her ex-husband, Max, has arrived, armed with a stray cat that needs looking after. Then there is news - gossip, really - that makes Gail wonder if Debbie’s betrothed, Kenneth, is such a good match after all. With so much going on over three days - dealing with in laws, an ex-boyfriend that turns up at the wedding and a pushy cat that is making itself at home - it’s no wonder that life seems to have been turned upside down.

Three Days in June makes for an easy to read social comedy about middle-class life. Anne Tyler’s peerless gift for realistic dialogue and situations is everywhere evident. Indeed, often it feels like you’ve been invited to listen in and comment on intimate family discussions. The narrator, Gail, is often unconsciously funny, knocking back social invitations because she’s simply not interested and sometimes finding that the world’s image of her doesn’t match her own. But she plods on, like we all do, and finds life’s not as bad as all that, even surprisingly good at times.

An enjoyable, light read from the master of the craft.

Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler. Published by Chatto & Windus. $32.99

March 25