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Hopscotch
Sydney. 2008. Pre-GFC.Forced into an early retirement due to illness, Sam Rosen has lost any semblance of control over his life. His wife, Rhonda, confined to the carer role, is feeling her identity ebb slowly away as her former life retreats further and further into the past.Their eldest son Mark is over-invested and as he lurches towards financial disaster, he can't bring himself to tell his wife Ingrid that they're losing money fast.Middle child Liza has always been independent and content to scrape through on her child-care worker's wage in one of the most expensive property markets in the world. But when her biological clock goes off, she's out of time in a city where men are thin on the ground and grown-up ones even scarcer.Baby of the family Jemma thinks that being mild-mannered will let her pass through life unharmed. And then, one night, everything changes.Fast and funny, Hopscotch charts a year in the lives of the endearingly flawed Rosen family, and holds up a mirror to contemporary urban life in Australia, interrogating our endless capacity for self-destruction, longing and love, and asks why we think we could ever find happiness in a city that's roaring with dysfunction.
- GenresFiction
352 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2015
3 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
Jane Messer
7 books18 followersI'm a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction, with novels, radio plays and other works published over the years.
My newest work is Raven Mother: War, Family and Inheritance, a memoir (2026, NewSouth Publishing).
I'm a passionate reader of Australian and world literature including literature in translation, and love popular genre lit including YA, Speculative and fantasy.
I'm also a teacher of creative writing, which is very much a vocation for me. I've been teaching since the early 1990s and headed up the Creative Writing programs at Macquarie University for many years. These days I mentor individual writers and run Masterclasses.
In 2025, I launched StorySALOON: Short Stories, Centre stage, a live show and podcast devoted to growing the audience for Australian short stories (read by some of our brilliant actors).
My most recent novel is Hopscotch (Picador 2015). The past few years while writing Raven Mother, I've been writing short stories. I don't have any plans for a new novel, or not yet anyway!
I live in Sydney, on Gadigal land.
She/her
My newest work is Raven Mother: War, Family and Inheritance, a memoir (2026, NewSouth Publishing).
I'm a passionate reader of Australian and world literature including literature in translation, and love popular genre lit including YA, Speculative and fantasy.
I'm also a teacher of creative writing, which is very much a vocation for me. I've been teaching since the early 1990s and headed up the Creative Writing programs at Macquarie University for many years. These days I mentor individual writers and run Masterclasses.
In 2025, I launched StorySALOON: Short Stories, Centre stage, a live show and podcast devoted to growing the audience for Australian short stories (read by some of our brilliant actors).
My most recent novel is Hopscotch (Picador 2015). The past few years while writing Raven Mother, I've been writing short stories. I don't have any plans for a new novel, or not yet anyway!
I live in Sydney, on Gadigal land.
She/her
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 6, 2017
There is no doubt this is a well-written book … it dips and flows and paints beautiful word pictures, the physical environment vividly described. The problem with it for me was, much like Ian McEwan's more recent books, it is a lot of words about a family of people I really didn't like much. In particular, there is one family member who is particularly difficult to care about who dominates the landscape, takes up far more of the book than I cared for, and I was aching for the downfall. Perhaps that is intentional, but it was a chore to read. In contrast, the character I did come to appreciate was barely there which, in keeping with this one's character, could also have been intentional, but it was like digging through a huge bowl of dry cereal to find the cranberry … the balance was off. It will add to the bookshelf of eagerly-sought "Sydney" books, but I left Sydney with few regrets 20 years ago.
May 31, 2015
I was so happy to be reading a book about Sydney. I miss her so, I always will, even though leaving her when I did was the right thing to do. Sydney is and always will be an integral part of me and I won't let anyone diss my girl. So I was really excited to be reading a book set in Sydney. And I wasn't disappointed. Messer showed Sydney in all her beautiful, breathtaking, cruel, industrial and highrise harbour glory, right down to one of Sydney's spectacular spring storms. She puts the storm to good use as a metaphor along with other features such as the uprooted tree and the game of hopscotch to name a few. I liked the way Messer didn't describe the different locations in Sydney in slavish detail, but rather used more of an emotional description of the areas, which fitted well with the drama occurring in each of the locations. Consequently, Sydney was a great backdrop to her tale about a family, the members of which are facing what they believe to be their worst fears. Sam Rosen is staring down the barrel of a degenerative disease of the nervous system and his wife Rhonda is coming to terms with what she perceives to be her expected role in this. Their son Mark and his wife Ingrid are dealing with the fallout of the GFC and facing being pregnant and penniless. Their daughters Liza and Jemma are also facing their own traumas and conflicts. They are all what you would probably call 'first world problems'. But that is the setting of this novel and they are bona fide and genuine problems that would be experienced by many of the readers at whom this novel is pitched at. As a result the plot and the characters ring true. The only weakness in the story was Jemma's apparent ability to shrug off three watershed moments in her life almost simultaneously. I thought this could do with just a bit more fleshing out, a bit more of an explanation of how this character managed to keep these emotional balls up in the air at the same time. But, thankfully nowhere does Messer become overly sentimental or melodramatic about her characters' challenges. They are all hurdles that we would all probably rather avoid. Messer's writing, which infuses a subtle humour and empathy into the characters' experiences, always allows the reader to remember that while her characters are being tossed about by events not totally in their control, they nonetheless all possess the wherewithal to deal with these challenges and come out the other side, changed but still thriving and resilient. The reader is reminded that we are more than our income, our investments, our possessions or our address, and that our bonds with our family and friends are more indicative of who we are. Our comfortable middle class life is a valuable buffer against many of life's challenges and traumas and allows us to face them, and the pain that inevitably accompanies them. Each of the characters believes they will be overwhelmed by the unhappy turn of events in their lives, but they are not. And this I feel is the fable of her story.
August 12, 2016
Complex, authentic characters in this novel and what a great mirror it is to contemporary Sydney! I loved the author's keen eye for the smallest details, how well she re-created our crazy current world with its minutest nuances (like a menu in a trendy bar). The best of all for me was the book's humour. I laughed out loud in quite a few places. I kept also thinking of Corrections as I read this novel, because both books share great energy, excellent pace and a knack for telling an urgent story.
July 20, 2021
I loved this book when it first came out and have gone back to read it again in Covid times. I love Jane Messer's sense of humour and her portrayal through this Sydney family of the intricacies of modern family life. It's a lesson in life - and deliciously written. Exactly what a good novel should be.
April 6, 2015
Patriarch of the Rosen family, Sam, has a terminal illness and is grappling with the question of whether the life he has left is worth living. Meanwhile, his wife, Rhonda, has settled uneasily to her role as carer and is in mourning – both for the identity she has lost, and the idea of a future without Sam.
‘To every woman there was the unravelling. She was on the verge of no longer being herself. She had sailed through the births of the children, managed well enough through the death of her father and of Sam’s parents, but this slow withering of his, this she was finding hardest of all.’
Sam and Rhonda’s eldest child, corporate salesman Mark, is standing on a precipice of debt, over which the GFC has sent him into free-fall. Middle-child, Liza, has a biological clock that’s ticking louder than a grandfather clock, yet seems to find herself romantically involved with men who are either losers, or emotionally unavailable, or both. Last of all, there’s youngest child, Jemma, the soft one – who is working, literally and figuratively on finding her own ‘voice.’
We meet the Rosens in the midst of Sam’s 68th birthday party, and we leave them exactly one year later, on Sam’s 69th.
On first read, it seems to have been an annus horribilis for the Rosens; each one is in a state of flux as they ‘leap’ into personal crises. Yet we finish with the sense that worse, and better, lies ahead; 2008 has not been an annus horribilis, it has in fact been just another stepping stone in the hopscotch game that we call ‘life’ – all ups and downs, forwards and sideways movements.
But why aren’t the Rosens more happy? They have each other. And they have Sydney.
‘The city was a grand place to be living in, for anyone, even that homeless guy curled up on the grass… The early morning light cast a cold glow upon the expanse of water. A ferry passed with a neat white slipstreams, on it way toward Milsons Point wharf.’
Yes, the views are glorious – but you can’t eat them. Here in Sydney, you have to work bloody hard for it – 10-12 hour days, book-ended by rage-inducing commutes – all for the glory of paying the ridiculous mortgage on your handkerchief-sized house.
As a title 'Hopscotch' is not only a reference to the changing lives of its main protagonists, but brilliantly reflects the transiency and restlessness of the city in which this story is played out. People jump about. They only support a winning football team. Hot restaurants close because newer and hotter ones open. We’re fickle.
Jane Messer understands this, and her characters, well. She writes with an omniscient narratorial presence. We see inside each character’s mind in sentence, after beautifully crafted sentence.
Is it strange to say that ‘the sentence’ is a key feature of the writing? Perhaps. After all, all novels must contain them. But Jane Messer’s sentences are different. They are complete and complex thoughts, rich with metaphor, and surprising in structure. Fragments are few. For instance, when Liza contemplates sex with her ex-boyfriend she recalls how, ‘She’d had a vision of her round cervix plumply useless against the chemical baby-solent smeared onto her contraceptive cap, instead of opening anemone-like toward the sea of silvery spermatozoa.’ See what I mean? That sentence, it’s somehow lush isn’t it? And funny too.
My kids like playing hopscotch. Sometimes, we draw the checker-board pattern onto our pavers with chalk. Inevitably, the rain comes and washes it away. But that’s okay, because we draw it again, and again, and like the Rosens, we just keep trying, and playing and striving, until we get somewhere.
‘To every woman there was the unravelling. She was on the verge of no longer being herself. She had sailed through the births of the children, managed well enough through the death of her father and of Sam’s parents, but this slow withering of his, this she was finding hardest of all.’
Sam and Rhonda’s eldest child, corporate salesman Mark, is standing on a precipice of debt, over which the GFC has sent him into free-fall. Middle-child, Liza, has a biological clock that’s ticking louder than a grandfather clock, yet seems to find herself romantically involved with men who are either losers, or emotionally unavailable, or both. Last of all, there’s youngest child, Jemma, the soft one – who is working, literally and figuratively on finding her own ‘voice.’
We meet the Rosens in the midst of Sam’s 68th birthday party, and we leave them exactly one year later, on Sam’s 69th.
On first read, it seems to have been an annus horribilis for the Rosens; each one is in a state of flux as they ‘leap’ into personal crises. Yet we finish with the sense that worse, and better, lies ahead; 2008 has not been an annus horribilis, it has in fact been just another stepping stone in the hopscotch game that we call ‘life’ – all ups and downs, forwards and sideways movements.
But why aren’t the Rosens more happy? They have each other. And they have Sydney.
‘The city was a grand place to be living in, for anyone, even that homeless guy curled up on the grass… The early morning light cast a cold glow upon the expanse of water. A ferry passed with a neat white slipstreams, on it way toward Milsons Point wharf.’
Yes, the views are glorious – but you can’t eat them. Here in Sydney, you have to work bloody hard for it – 10-12 hour days, book-ended by rage-inducing commutes – all for the glory of paying the ridiculous mortgage on your handkerchief-sized house.
As a title 'Hopscotch' is not only a reference to the changing lives of its main protagonists, but brilliantly reflects the transiency and restlessness of the city in which this story is played out. People jump about. They only support a winning football team. Hot restaurants close because newer and hotter ones open. We’re fickle.
Jane Messer understands this, and her characters, well. She writes with an omniscient narratorial presence. We see inside each character’s mind in sentence, after beautifully crafted sentence.
Is it strange to say that ‘the sentence’ is a key feature of the writing? Perhaps. After all, all novels must contain them. But Jane Messer’s sentences are different. They are complete and complex thoughts, rich with metaphor, and surprising in structure. Fragments are few. For instance, when Liza contemplates sex with her ex-boyfriend she recalls how, ‘She’d had a vision of her round cervix plumply useless against the chemical baby-solent smeared onto her contraceptive cap, instead of opening anemone-like toward the sea of silvery spermatozoa.’ See what I mean? That sentence, it’s somehow lush isn’t it? And funny too.
My kids like playing hopscotch. Sometimes, we draw the checker-board pattern onto our pavers with chalk. Inevitably, the rain comes and washes it away. But that’s okay, because we draw it again, and again, and like the Rosens, we just keep trying, and playing and striving, until we get somewhere.
January 6, 2016
Another book finished while recovering from the flu
Having lived away from Sydney for over 40 years, I definitely love reading about the city, the hectic life of people working there and the characters that Messer has developed seem very real and you can connect to them. The stories of each of the Rosen family deal with contemporary events that have affected us all more or less - and as one of the characters, Mark, is affected by the global financial crisis you can't help but feel a part of this narrative. Messer deals with relationships, fear of commitment that is a huge part of our culture nowadays, lack or responsibility for our actions, but also the strength we all find to deal with difficulties that arise.
Having lived away from Sydney for over 40 years, I definitely love reading about the city, the hectic life of people working there and the characters that Messer has developed seem very real and you can connect to them. The stories of each of the Rosen family deal with contemporary events that have affected us all more or less - and as one of the characters, Mark, is affected by the global financial crisis you can't help but feel a part of this narrative. Messer deals with relationships, fear of commitment that is a huge part of our culture nowadays, lack or responsibility for our actions, but also the strength we all find to deal with difficulties that arise.
July 29, 2015
Loved it!
Being set in a family setting in Sydney , reminded me of another favourite, Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor.
Keen to read more from Jane Messer
Highly recommended .
Being set in a family setting in Sydney , reminded me of another favourite, Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor.
Keen to read more from Jane Messer
Highly recommended .
October 28, 2017
Very quickly lost interest in the characters and gave up
September 5, 2020
Sydney. Relationships.
October 5, 2021
Evocative, beautifully written, cleverly plotted, and of course Sydney, our city, stars as a character in her own right. What a gem this book is.
December 11, 2021
Know these suburb areas so well that it was a joy to read a story being situated there. Well structured and sensitive psychological portrayals.
February 10, 2016
I did enjoy this book but as I write this review around a week after reading it, I am having trouble recalling what went on... which is not a good sign.
It is a book about a family where every member seems to be struggling with something - whether it is illness, dependence, anxiety, finance, sexuality or crime. Some cope better than others. Some struggles are self contained, others fan out and impact the rest of the family.
This was a good book with complex characters but like I mentioned above, it did not have anything specific which left a strong impression in my mind after a relatively short time.
It is a book about a family where every member seems to be struggling with something - whether it is illness, dependence, anxiety, finance, sexuality or crime. Some cope better than others. Some struggles are self contained, others fan out and impact the rest of the family.
This was a good book with complex characters but like I mentioned above, it did not have anything specific which left a strong impression in my mind after a relatively short time.
Read
April 29, 2015This was a very useful companion on a train journey home that took 4.5 hours instead of 1.5, showcasing Sydney Rail at its best. Given the book is set in Sydney I felt warmed by all the familiar places and moods... it was not at all a terrible way to spend the trip home. I was pleasantly absorbed, enjoyed the characters and the writing style. The problem is that only a week later I don't seem able to remember a great deal about it. Which may speak volumes in itself.
February 25, 2016
3.5 stars.
August 8, 2015
A book about a Sydney family with the odd quirk thrown in for [bad?] measure
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews