Palomino

by Elizabeth Jolley

This first novel centres around the relationships between two women, one a mature landowner, the other younger and previously married. Set on an Australian farm with Palomino horses, the novel explores the understanding between the two women them as they make discoveries about each other's past.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, LGBT, Literature, Lesbian

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Monica Elizabeth Jolley was an award-winning writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s. She was 53 years old when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels (including an autobiographical trilogy), four short story collections, and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well known writers such as Tim Winton among her students. Her novels explore alienated characters and the nature of loneliness and entrapment.

Honours:
1987: Western Australian Citizen of the Year
1988: Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to literature
1989: Canada/Australia Literary Award
1997: Australian Living Treasure

Reviews

[Mandy Partridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Jolley's style is kind of slow moving, but she packs a punch once you've got a bit bored. Lesbians of different ages, one of whom is pregnant from an incestuous relationship- Australia wasn't ready for that, in the 1950s when she wrote it, 1980 when it got published, or even now in 2022.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jolley subtly unfolds the relationship between Laura and Andrea and delicately reveals their lives and joint history. The novel opens with their meeting on a cruise, their unspoken shy glances, and takes Laura’s point of view with her observations of Andrea, a woman’s whose colouring reminds her of her beloved palominos, Andrea’s illness and a necklace that catches her eye. The women part, without ever having spoken a word, until they meet again as guests at the same dinner party.

Laura had returned to her rural home for the quiet consolation and comfort the land offers her, despite, or perhaps alongside, the presence of the Murphy’s, her deftly drawn tenants. Jolley’s gifted portrayal of Murphy, her hired farmhand / tenant, Mrs Murphy and their children, adds humour and tension. Mrs Murphy, with her rampant curiosity and ability to wheedle Laura’s belongings, her complaints, her unsettling effect on Laura and facility for causing deliberate disruption, is a marvellous character.

Laura attends a neighbour’s dinner and finds herself seated near Andrea. The shift to Andrea’s perspective allows us to see how Laura’s behaviour is interpreted by others, Andrea describing Laura’s “shy graciousness.” The tale alternates between Laura and Andrea’s viewpoints as Andrea takes up Laura’s offer to recuperate on her property. The secret longing, the glances and unspoken desires continue but now we are privileged to see from both women’s point of view, understanding that their desires are mutual.

The farm has given Laura a haven and a focus after her medical career ended in circumstances that the reader is led to gradually. Jolley builds to the reveal in a manner that leaves the reader mirroring Andrea’s curiosity. Laura is not the only one with secrets. Andrea’s relationship with her brother is divulged as is Laura’s previous history with Andrea’s mother.

“How can I tell her that I am longing to really know her, for her to know me, that I want to take her in my arms and keep her safe.” Their relationship develops tenderly, cautiously and lovingly, as the women explore their pasts, the challenges of the present, and whether there can be any possibility of a future. The threat of a dry, hot summer sparking a fire adds to the building tension between the women as the inevitability of a major event looms.

The pacing of this novel, partly due to the exquisite prose, caused me to slow down my reading in a way I haven’t done for a while. It took me a little while as a reader to fall into Jolley’s language, but once I had, it was a pleasure.

[Mel]

"I realise now that I avoided seeing how she received his coming. Perhaps we all defended ourselves."

I knew the vague outlines of two main elements going in (two women sleep together and one is pregnant via incest) and because of the time period and how quickly the prior profession of Doctor is established, I guessed there would be abortion involved.

But despite - no, because of - knowing that and when it was written, I did not expect it to be so very blunt in its prose. The way it switches POV, and uses letters helps forward that frankness, and though I found the "Eva [secondary character] accidentally sent Laura [primary character] an incredibly thorough and expository letter meant for a different friend [tertiary character], then Laura gave it to Andrea [primary character] to read" device quite too convenient . . .

it's clear the author uses these devices along with the way the tense changes (not just in the letters, but how the narrator(s) speak in present tense, but also sometimes from the future) as a way to explore interiority. She wants to depict how relationship(s) and even micro-societies could look - for better and so, so much worse! - if some of us actually WERE so open about ourselves with our lovers, or even ourselves.

Because we're not often so honest with ourselves about feelings, desires, motivations, and especially our pasts, seeing characters discuss such things, admit such things, in text is more shocking than what said characters are actually doing - and the depictions of the events themselves (sex, abortion, medical events) are quite clinical and tame, especially in comparison to the passions and psyches driving them.

A fascinating read with that perspective, and I'm keen to track down any reviews from the era when it was published. I should also parse out a little more how the tenses and dual-first-person POV work, I just can't be asked to unpack the technical when I'm still sorting the emotional.

"[Laura] is a woman of the privileged and sensitive sort, privileged because she is not bound to any sort of drudgery and so is able to do the work she wants to do and is able to further her talents."

"A woman like Laura demands life on her own terms, but her own terms limit the kind of life she can have."

[Ashlyn Jayde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even reading this now in 2024, it’s shocking. I couldn’t imagine the shock from anyone reading this back in the 80s. In saying that though, it is a beautiful yet heartbreaking book. Two lesbians on a farm in Australia, hiding so many secrets.

A slow yet easy read, and definitely a treasure for my bookshelf despite the 3* rating.

[Bronwyn Rykiert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not get into this book as the subject is not something I wish to read and to me the book as far as I got was a little morbid? Laura, a former doctor, who has spent time in jail and has been disbarred for something in the past (I did not find out what it was), now lives in the country in isolation - he only company being Murphy as his family (he is supposed to work for Laura but he is very lazy). Laura keeps saying how unhappy she is the with the Murphy's but just puts up with them.

While on cruise she meets Andrea, who she fantazises about and what do you know it turns out that Andrea's mother is a former friend (companion) of Luara's - I don't quite know what happened there either. Andrea wants to be with Laura as much as Laura wants to be with her but along the way Andrea has had a intimate relationship with her brother?

A bit too much for me, though I might like to learn was Laura was struck off from being a doctor - not enough to keep going.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fabulous, classy Aussie author.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disturbing and kind of boring

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could the author have covered any more tabboo's into a book?

[Louise Omer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quiet and meditative novel about longing, love and pain.
I think the question at its heart is learning not to make demands of the one you love.
I didn't enjoy the tone of this book, but there were some exquisitely written passages which confirmed why Elizabeth Jolley is such a heavyweight in Australian fiction. The story burrows down to the roots of its theme: what it means to love someone.