The Women In Black
Text Classics
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4.1 • 50 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Written by a superb novelist of contemporary manners, The Women in Black is a fairytale which illuminates the extraordinariness of ordinary lives.
The women in black are run off their feet, what with the Christmas rush and the summer sales that follow. But it’s Sydney in the 1950s, and there’s still just enough time left on a hot and frantic day to dream and scheme…By the time the last marked-down frock has been sold, most of the staff of the Ladies’ Cocktail section at F. G. Goode’s have been launched into slightly different careers.
With the lightest touch and the most tender of comic instincts, Madeleine St John conjures a vanished summer of innocence. The Women in Black, introduced by Bruce Beresford, is a great novel, a lost Australian classic.
Madeleine St John was born in Sydney in 1941. She studied Arts at Sydney University, where her contemporaries included Bruce Beresford, Germaine Greer, Clive James and Robert Hughes. In 1993, St John published her first novel, The Women in Black, the only book she set in Australia. Her third novel, The Essence of the Thing (1997), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Bruce Beresford is one of Australia’s best known film and opera directors. His films include The Getting of Wisdom, Driving Miss Daisy and Breaker Morant.
textclassics.com.au
‘Seductive, hilarious, brilliantly observed, this novel shimmers with wit and tenderness.’ Helen Garner
‘An exceptional writer. Those of us who knew her at Sydney University back in the late 1950s are still trying to forgive ourselves that we never guessed what she would become.’ Clive James
‘A knockout — ironic, sharp, alive, and then you’re stopped in your tracks by the warmth of her insights.’ Joan London
‘A little gem…shot through with old-fashioned innocence and sly humour.’ Vogue
‘A highly sophisticated work, full of funny, sharp and subtle observations…a small masterpiece.’ Sunday Times(UK)
‘There is something special about…The Women in Black. St John’s tone is…a joy: brisk, perfectly managed and, in its disdain for clutter, oddly life-affirming. She casts an airy spell with the deftness of her prose, which moves gracefully, swiftly and with perfect manners…[St John] conjures a Sydney on the cusp of modern promise; a place where her characters can meet the future with a bright face and step out of the past like an old dress, where limits can be lightly shaken off.’ Delia Falconer, Australian
Customer Reviews
LBD
4.5 stars
Author
Australian (1941-2006). The first Australian woman short listed for the Booker Prize (The Essence of the Thing 1997). Her father, Edward St John, was a celebrated Sydney barrister and later a politician. Her classmates at Sydney Uni were an arty bunch: Bruce Beresford, John Bell, Clive James, Germain Greer, Arthur Dignam, Robert Hughes (the Time Magazine art critic not the pervy one from TV), and Richard Walsh. ‘The Women in Black’ is Ms St James’s first novel and the only one set in Australia. Bruce Beresford made a movie "Ladies in Black' (2018), based on this book.
Precis
It’s the late 1950s in the Ladies Cocktail Frocks section of a famous Sydney Department Store called F W Goode (read David Jones). Staff are preparing for the Christmas rush, daydreaming about better lives, scheming in various ways: an all female version of ‘Are You Being Served?’ A shy school leaver with aspirations to attend university is taken under the wing of a flamboyant migrant from the Balkans. Stuff happens in a Jane Austen sort of way.
Writing
Prose exquisite. Time and place are recreated beautifully. (I have no memory of the 1950s, but I grew up in Brisbane in the 1960s, which was ten years behind Sydney). Jane Austen would be proud of this one.
Bottom line
A gem. I haven't seen the film. Why would I? The book is always better!
A Rare Insight...
An observant writer who has achieved a nuanced characterisation of the “Continental” - this evokes so many memories of my youth, filled with a host of characters of the kind! Growing up Slovenian-Australian and now married to a Hungarian... the story brought such joy!