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Indelible Ink
Marie King is a 59-year-old divorcée from Sydney's affluent north shore. Having devoted her rather conventional life to looking after her husband and three children - who have now all departed the family home - she is experiencing something of an identity crisis, especially as she must now sell the family home and thus lose her beloved garden.
On a folly she gets a tattoo. Marie forges a friendship with her tattoo artist, Rhys, who introduces her to an alternative side of Sydney from that to which Marie is accustomed. Through their burgeoning connection, Marie's two worlds collide causing great friction within Marie's family and with her circle of rich friends.
With echoes of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap, Indelible Ink is a multi-layered examination of how we live now, in which one family becomes a microcosm for the changes operating in society at large.
On a folly she gets a tattoo. Marie forges a friendship with her tattoo artist, Rhys, who introduces her to an alternative side of Sydney from that to which Marie is accustomed. Through their burgeoning connection, Marie's two worlds collide causing great friction within Marie's family and with her circle of rich friends.
With echoes of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap, Indelible Ink is a multi-layered examination of how we live now, in which one family becomes a microcosm for the changes operating in society at large.
452 pages, Paperback
First published May 31, 2010
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April 23, 2011
Marie King is a 59 year old divorced woman living in a good sized home on a good sized block in Mosman. Marie acquired the house outright in the settlement when her husband left her but she’s having trouble maintaining it. She fell pregnant in University, promptly dropped out and became stay at home mother for most of her life, until her children were grown and left the family home. She has no income now and is beginning to drown in debt. Living on a credit card with a fifty thousand dollar limit, she reluctantly comes to the conclusion that she has to sell the house. Her three children all argue against this even though it’s pretty obvious that Marie is fast running out of means. The crippling drought is killing her beloved garden – Marie has lived in the house for a long time and the plants there mean much to her, such as the one she planted for the birth of one of her children.
After a few too many drinks she makes a decision to stop into a tattoo parlour on a whim. A simple decision she makes for herself leads to a journey of self discovery through tattoos – her first, a small flower on her shoulder gives way to two simple ankle bands before she finds the beauty of tattoos that mean something, acquiring more and more ink through a well known artist with whom she develops a deep friendship. As she seeks to reassert her sense of self and self-worth, her children are treating her like a slightly recalcitrant child, questioning her every decision and move, her every choice about herself.
Like The Slap I’m having a hard trouble deciding if I liked this book or not. There were aspects of it that I really liked – the writing for a start. Fiona McGregor can indeed tell a story in a beautiful way and even though the characters and story line were really not something I enjoyed, I did definitely enjoy the reading process of this book.
I was born in middle class western Sydney and moved to the country at a young age so I’m afraid I found it very hard to sympathise and identify with Marie, drowning in debt but clawing onto her Mosman home for grim death. It’s valued at about $6 million and given that she maxes out her credit card at some stage during the novel, I am assuming she owes about fifty thousand, perhaps a little more. When the house eventually sells for around $5.7 million, that would still leave her a whopping amount of money to live out the rest of her life. If I’m supposed to feel sorry for her financial status then I am clearly not the intended audience of this book! Even as Marie is aware that she’s having money problems, she’s spending like it’s going out of fashion – it’s never stated how much she spends on the tattoos, but given the size of them and the time and detail they require, it must easily run into the thousands. I can’t identify with the whole lower north shore zeal, nor can I understand a reluctance to sell a house worth a lot of money when there are debts to pay and a way in which to live required. I do get that she lived in the house a very long time and her children grew up there but the crux of the matter is: you have no money. Your house is worth a lot and very expensive to upkeep. You can sell the house, get your millions and start again. Maybe in not so prestigious an area as Mosman but at least you’ll be able to afford your own groceries and not have your cheque to your cleaner bounce.
I think too much of this novel was devoted to Marie’s children, none of which were likable. Somewhere along the line it became less about Marie’s journey and self-discovery and more about her children’s lives. Even though I couldn’t really relate to Marie, I did find the sections about her far more interesting than the ones about her children. I also found their attitude and judgement towards the tattoos (especially the first couple, which were very small and discreet) quite outdated – although once again this just could be a location/culture divide. Tattoos are so common these days, on all types of people, I really couldn’t see the harm in Marie getting them, nor could I understand the horror in her children’s voices as they talked about it. All grown people in their 30s, their attitudes were a bit old-fashioned. They were far less horrified about her excess drinking, taking an amused, relaxed ‘oh was Mum pissed again?’ attitude. If they were teenagers, they’d have put a “LOL” at the end. I found Marie’s alcohol consumption quite alarming in the beginning of the book. Marie drinks a lot. She appears to drive quite a lot when she’d be over the limit and her drinking I think, ends up masking a greater health problem that comes out in her life way too late to be fixed.
It’s hard to get past how irritated I was with the “to sell or not to sell, that is the question” thread of the book and the disappointment I felt that when Marie does decide to sell, and does indeed sell the house, because it’s no longer about that anymore so ultimately, we never get to see Marie rebuild her life. I feel as though I read and read and read about this house and the decisions she has to make and the changes she goes through to make them, only for the book to laugh at me and go “haha don’t even bother, we’ve moved on from that now!”.
And the ending? So depressing! I hate finishing a book that makes me feel like I should be scrambling around in my bathroom looking for the razorblades.
After a few too many drinks she makes a decision to stop into a tattoo parlour on a whim. A simple decision she makes for herself leads to a journey of self discovery through tattoos – her first, a small flower on her shoulder gives way to two simple ankle bands before she finds the beauty of tattoos that mean something, acquiring more and more ink through a well known artist with whom she develops a deep friendship. As she seeks to reassert her sense of self and self-worth, her children are treating her like a slightly recalcitrant child, questioning her every decision and move, her every choice about herself.
Like The Slap I’m having a hard trouble deciding if I liked this book or not. There were aspects of it that I really liked – the writing for a start. Fiona McGregor can indeed tell a story in a beautiful way and even though the characters and story line were really not something I enjoyed, I did definitely enjoy the reading process of this book.
I was born in middle class western Sydney and moved to the country at a young age so I’m afraid I found it very hard to sympathise and identify with Marie, drowning in debt but clawing onto her Mosman home for grim death. It’s valued at about $6 million and given that she maxes out her credit card at some stage during the novel, I am assuming she owes about fifty thousand, perhaps a little more. When the house eventually sells for around $5.7 million, that would still leave her a whopping amount of money to live out the rest of her life. If I’m supposed to feel sorry for her financial status then I am clearly not the intended audience of this book! Even as Marie is aware that she’s having money problems, she’s spending like it’s going out of fashion – it’s never stated how much she spends on the tattoos, but given the size of them and the time and detail they require, it must easily run into the thousands. I can’t identify with the whole lower north shore zeal, nor can I understand a reluctance to sell a house worth a lot of money when there are debts to pay and a way in which to live required. I do get that she lived in the house a very long time and her children grew up there but the crux of the matter is: you have no money. Your house is worth a lot and very expensive to upkeep. You can sell the house, get your millions and start again. Maybe in not so prestigious an area as Mosman but at least you’ll be able to afford your own groceries and not have your cheque to your cleaner bounce.
I think too much of this novel was devoted to Marie’s children, none of which were likable. Somewhere along the line it became less about Marie’s journey and self-discovery and more about her children’s lives. Even though I couldn’t really relate to Marie, I did find the sections about her far more interesting than the ones about her children. I also found their attitude and judgement towards the tattoos (especially the first couple, which were very small and discreet) quite outdated – although once again this just could be a location/culture divide. Tattoos are so common these days, on all types of people, I really couldn’t see the harm in Marie getting them, nor could I understand the horror in her children’s voices as they talked about it. All grown people in their 30s, their attitudes were a bit old-fashioned. They were far less horrified about her excess drinking, taking an amused, relaxed ‘oh was Mum pissed again?’ attitude. If they were teenagers, they’d have put a “LOL” at the end. I found Marie’s alcohol consumption quite alarming in the beginning of the book. Marie drinks a lot. She appears to drive quite a lot when she’d be over the limit and her drinking I think, ends up masking a greater health problem that comes out in her life way too late to be fixed.
It’s hard to get past how irritated I was with the “to sell or not to sell, that is the question” thread of the book and the disappointment I felt that when Marie does decide to sell, and does indeed sell the house, because it’s no longer about that anymore so ultimately, we never get to see Marie rebuild her life. I feel as though I read and read and read about this house and the decisions she has to make and the changes she goes through to make them, only for the book to laugh at me and go “haha don’t even bother, we’ve moved on from that now!”.
And the ending? So depressing! I hate finishing a book that makes me feel like I should be scrambling around in my bathroom looking for the razorblades.
January 19, 2016
Women have been reinventing themselves in the novel ever since Elizabeth Bennett but Marie King in Indelible Ink is something else again. Fiona McGregor’s fourth novel has been widely praised, but I read most of Indelible Ink with a sense of fascinated disdain for its central character. Rebellious adolescents are one thing – but a privileged middle-aged women rebelling against her awful children by getting drunk and being sick all over a sofa in a furniture store? Traipsing round Kings’ Cross to get herself plastered in tattoos? Whatever would Jane Austen have thought about that?
Maybe Austen would have understood. Lizzy Bennett’s preoccupation was all about negotiating her way through society’s expectations and constraints to find a life that would satisfy her sense of self-respect, integrity and individuality. Today’s middle-aged women in transition to a new stage in their lives feel the same imperative: it informs Enza Gandolfo’s recent novel Swimming (http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/200...) and it’s the underlying issue in Indelible Ink.
The novel expands on the theme of women subverting expectations in Jenny Joseph’s poem ‘Warning’ :
WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
(I can’t quote the whole poem because of copyright, but this link (http://www.luvzbluez.com/purple.html)has no such scruples.)
Incredible Ink dissects with forensic intensity what happens when a woman sets out to do what is suggested in the last lines of the poem:
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Marie King is almost sixty, and divorced. She has a large house in an expensive Sydney suburb but she can’t afford to maintain the property and she doesn’t like the encroachment of the nouveau-riche who don’t share her values. The friends with whom she spends her New Year’s Eve have a lifestyle she can no longer share, and she discomfits them when she admits it because she challenges their easy assumptions.
She’s alienated from her horrible solipsistic children too, and not just because they want her to sell the property. They tell her what to wear, they tell her to replace daggy furniture with something smarter and they tell her to stop spreading manure around her cherished garden because she should be trying to impress potential buyers who won’t like the smell. They want, in other words, to run her life.
It was Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sing...) who most graphically depicted how the texture and appearance of skin is critical to identity. Sadly, defacing one’s own skin is a self-harming behaviour among the mentally ill. Marie doesn’t have a skin condition and she isn’t mentally ill but she changes her skin in a way that provokes reactions ranging from fascination to distaste to outright revulsion. Like girls self-harming, she inflicts on herself what is clearly a very painful procedure to assert herself in ways that brook no interference. Tattoos are indelible. It’s her way of saying that her kids and any potential lovers can’t efface her individuality any more than they can efface the tattoos – and she’s going to flaunt them, not cover them up … they’re not discreet anklets or a small rose on a shoulder!
The book has a rather fierce tone, savaging the empty materialism of the lifestyle that surrounds Marie. These characters hector each other about environmental and social issues while scornful allusions to designer labels and ‘branding’ litter the prose. Astute local readers will notice sniping over recent political issues – though these will probably mystify international readers (or readers in years to come; it’s a very contemporary novel). I do like the way this book is unashamedly Australian, for example, alluding without concessions to Norman Lindsay’s Magic Pudding [1:] - but a puzzled reader can Google that. Exchanges like this, on the other hand, may make no sense at all overseas:
She handed the receptionist her Medicare card.
‘That’s ninety dollars, thanks, Mrs King.’
Marie was taken aback. ‘You don’t bulk bill?’
‘Not for three years.’ The receptionist smiled.
‘I’m sorry, I had no idea.’ Marie handed over her Visa card.
‘That’s good. It shows how long it is since you’ve been to the doctor. (p65)
This exchange reveals Maris’s carelessness in looking after her body (because women should have regular pap smears, breast screening etc) but its political significance is that the Federal Government rebate to doctors for medical consultations failed to keep pace with inflation so they stopped bulk billing, which (by the flourish of a Medicare card) had made going to the doctor free in Australia. The ninety dollar fee Marie is charged in Neutral Bay is 50% more than most doctors charge - an indication of the wealthy lifestyle that surrounds Marie without her being part of it. Will readers ‘get’ that five years from now? I don’t say this to criticise the novel for being contemporary, only to point out the risks for the author. )
McGregor isn’t exploring poverty: Marie being short of money is a relative issue in this novel. She stumbles out of the surgery into the excesses of Christmas shopping and draws attention because her shabby car doesn’t fit in her expensive suburb. When her house is sold she’ll be wealthy but won’t be able to live in the same area and meanwhile she’s cash-poor and has to drive out of her way to buy cheap petrol. She flogs off the remnants of the cellar so that she has the money for the tattoos. (Not, Mcgregor shows us, to pay the cleaning lady. Her son has to come to the rescue for that.)
The one thing she has never seriously considered is getting a job! She ponders it fleetingly (p191) but apart from the disadvantage of her age, she’s spent a whole lifetime being financially dependant. She doesn’t seem to have been involved in community work (which might have taught her some skills and given her a sense of meaning in her life); with her children now grown she’s useless and she’s really got nothing to do.
Marie’s not yet 60; she’s not of that generation of women who were denied opportunity for study or career – that psychology degree she never finished was begun when tertiary education was free in Australia and women flocked into the universities and went on to have great careers. There are people who have started new careers or begun new study at her age, but what she is confronting is that her way of life is outmoded and very risky for women: divorced after a lifetime of financial dependance she now has no money of her own. No income, no superannuation and she’s financially illiterate. She has only the house and some investments she doesn’t understand and has left untended since the divorce settlement.
(And is she taking professional advice about how best to manage her finances once she sells her house and has the million-dollar proceeds? No, she’s not. She was like a drunken teenager driving down a dark country road. (p190) This sort of stupidity doesn’t inspire much sympathy).
Kate Wilks in Swimming has to come to terms with her ambivalence about motherhood, menopause and her own infertility, but she has always had the satisfaction of a career, a meaningful female friendship and a hobby (long-distance swimming). She also (atypically, at late middle-age when men interested in older women are in short supply) has a sexy lover. Marie King has none of these things. Only her garden brings her any real pleasure, and she’s about to lose it.
McGregor strays close to schadenfreude sometimes but about half way through the novel a plot twist takes the story in a different direction. Marie’s horrible children, ever mindful of their eventual inheritance and almost caricatures of Sydneyesque ‘types’ in their shallowness, are shocked not only by her tattoos but also her sudden dependance on them. There was rather more about these three than I wanted to read (it’s a long novel) but was sufficiently intrigued to keep going.
I read Fiona McGregor’s Au Pair (1993) some years ago and liked it. Short-listed for the Vogel and published by the prestigious McPhee Gribble imprint it was a sophisticated coming-of-age story in which Sioban escapes her tiresome life in Australia to become an au-pair but learns the hard way that the working holiday in France is not as easy as it seems. Similarly, Indelible Ink traces expectations gone awry with this difference: the optimism of youth is gone and there is a sense that Marie is trapped. She’s very different to the resilient and accomplished older women that I know and admire.
It’s raw, it’s grungy and there’s some confronting language: Sydneysiders may not like the critique of their city. I have a feeling that it will interest some age groups more than others, but it’s a novel that offers book groups plenty to talk about, and I suspect that it will be a best-seller once the word gets out.
Geordie Williamson wrote a brief review for The Monthly and described it as the ‘richest and most complete evocation of Sydney since Patrick White’s The Vivisector’. (The Monthly July 2010 p72). Jo Case reviewed it for the June ABR (http://www.australianbookreview.com.a...).
[1:] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magi... I had trouble imagining a tattoo of the magic pudding! Click on the NSW Library images from the book here and see what you think. Then again, Peter Carey has a thing about the magic pudding, so maybe…
Cross-posted at http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201....
Author: Fiona McGregor
Title: Indelible Ink
Publisher: Scribe 2010
ISBN: 9781921215966
Source: GoodReads Review Program
Maybe Austen would have understood. Lizzy Bennett’s preoccupation was all about negotiating her way through society’s expectations and constraints to find a life that would satisfy her sense of self-respect, integrity and individuality. Today’s middle-aged women in transition to a new stage in their lives feel the same imperative: it informs Enza Gandolfo’s recent novel Swimming (http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/200...) and it’s the underlying issue in Indelible Ink.
The novel expands on the theme of women subverting expectations in Jenny Joseph’s poem ‘Warning’ :
WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
(I can’t quote the whole poem because of copyright, but this link (http://www.luvzbluez.com/purple.html)has no such scruples.)
Incredible Ink dissects with forensic intensity what happens when a woman sets out to do what is suggested in the last lines of the poem:
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Marie King is almost sixty, and divorced. She has a large house in an expensive Sydney suburb but she can’t afford to maintain the property and she doesn’t like the encroachment of the nouveau-riche who don’t share her values. The friends with whom she spends her New Year’s Eve have a lifestyle she can no longer share, and she discomfits them when she admits it because she challenges their easy assumptions.
She’s alienated from her horrible solipsistic children too, and not just because they want her to sell the property. They tell her what to wear, they tell her to replace daggy furniture with something smarter and they tell her to stop spreading manure around her cherished garden because she should be trying to impress potential buyers who won’t like the smell. They want, in other words, to run her life.
It was Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sing...) who most graphically depicted how the texture and appearance of skin is critical to identity. Sadly, defacing one’s own skin is a self-harming behaviour among the mentally ill. Marie doesn’t have a skin condition and she isn’t mentally ill but she changes her skin in a way that provokes reactions ranging from fascination to distaste to outright revulsion. Like girls self-harming, she inflicts on herself what is clearly a very painful procedure to assert herself in ways that brook no interference. Tattoos are indelible. It’s her way of saying that her kids and any potential lovers can’t efface her individuality any more than they can efface the tattoos – and she’s going to flaunt them, not cover them up … they’re not discreet anklets or a small rose on a shoulder!
The book has a rather fierce tone, savaging the empty materialism of the lifestyle that surrounds Marie. These characters hector each other about environmental and social issues while scornful allusions to designer labels and ‘branding’ litter the prose. Astute local readers will notice sniping over recent political issues – though these will probably mystify international readers (or readers in years to come; it’s a very contemporary novel). I do like the way this book is unashamedly Australian, for example, alluding without concessions to Norman Lindsay’s Magic Pudding [1:] - but a puzzled reader can Google that. Exchanges like this, on the other hand, may make no sense at all overseas:
She handed the receptionist her Medicare card.
‘That’s ninety dollars, thanks, Mrs King.’
Marie was taken aback. ‘You don’t bulk bill?’
‘Not for three years.’ The receptionist smiled.
‘I’m sorry, I had no idea.’ Marie handed over her Visa card.
‘That’s good. It shows how long it is since you’ve been to the doctor. (p65)
This exchange reveals Maris’s carelessness in looking after her body (because women should have regular pap smears, breast screening etc) but its political significance is that the Federal Government rebate to doctors for medical consultations failed to keep pace with inflation so they stopped bulk billing, which (by the flourish of a Medicare card) had made going to the doctor free in Australia. The ninety dollar fee Marie is charged in Neutral Bay is 50% more than most doctors charge - an indication of the wealthy lifestyle that surrounds Marie without her being part of it. Will readers ‘get’ that five years from now? I don’t say this to criticise the novel for being contemporary, only to point out the risks for the author. )
McGregor isn’t exploring poverty: Marie being short of money is a relative issue in this novel. She stumbles out of the surgery into the excesses of Christmas shopping and draws attention because her shabby car doesn’t fit in her expensive suburb. When her house is sold she’ll be wealthy but won’t be able to live in the same area and meanwhile she’s cash-poor and has to drive out of her way to buy cheap petrol. She flogs off the remnants of the cellar so that she has the money for the tattoos. (Not, Mcgregor shows us, to pay the cleaning lady. Her son has to come to the rescue for that.)
The one thing she has never seriously considered is getting a job! She ponders it fleetingly (p191) but apart from the disadvantage of her age, she’s spent a whole lifetime being financially dependant. She doesn’t seem to have been involved in community work (which might have taught her some skills and given her a sense of meaning in her life); with her children now grown she’s useless and she’s really got nothing to do.
Marie’s not yet 60; she’s not of that generation of women who were denied opportunity for study or career – that psychology degree she never finished was begun when tertiary education was free in Australia and women flocked into the universities and went on to have great careers. There are people who have started new careers or begun new study at her age, but what she is confronting is that her way of life is outmoded and very risky for women: divorced after a lifetime of financial dependance she now has no money of her own. No income, no superannuation and she’s financially illiterate. She has only the house and some investments she doesn’t understand and has left untended since the divorce settlement.
(And is she taking professional advice about how best to manage her finances once she sells her house and has the million-dollar proceeds? No, she’s not. She was like a drunken teenager driving down a dark country road. (p190) This sort of stupidity doesn’t inspire much sympathy).
Kate Wilks in Swimming has to come to terms with her ambivalence about motherhood, menopause and her own infertility, but she has always had the satisfaction of a career, a meaningful female friendship and a hobby (long-distance swimming). She also (atypically, at late middle-age when men interested in older women are in short supply) has a sexy lover. Marie King has none of these things. Only her garden brings her any real pleasure, and she’s about to lose it.
McGregor strays close to schadenfreude sometimes but about half way through the novel a plot twist takes the story in a different direction. Marie’s horrible children, ever mindful of their eventual inheritance and almost caricatures of Sydneyesque ‘types’ in their shallowness, are shocked not only by her tattoos but also her sudden dependance on them. There was rather more about these three than I wanted to read (it’s a long novel) but was sufficiently intrigued to keep going.
I read Fiona McGregor’s Au Pair (1993) some years ago and liked it. Short-listed for the Vogel and published by the prestigious McPhee Gribble imprint it was a sophisticated coming-of-age story in which Sioban escapes her tiresome life in Australia to become an au-pair but learns the hard way that the working holiday in France is not as easy as it seems. Similarly, Indelible Ink traces expectations gone awry with this difference: the optimism of youth is gone and there is a sense that Marie is trapped. She’s very different to the resilient and accomplished older women that I know and admire.
It’s raw, it’s grungy and there’s some confronting language: Sydneysiders may not like the critique of their city. I have a feeling that it will interest some age groups more than others, but it’s a novel that offers book groups plenty to talk about, and I suspect that it will be a best-seller once the word gets out.
Geordie Williamson wrote a brief review for The Monthly and described it as the ‘richest and most complete evocation of Sydney since Patrick White’s The Vivisector’. (The Monthly July 2010 p72). Jo Case reviewed it for the June ABR (http://www.australianbookreview.com.a...).
[1:] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magi... I had trouble imagining a tattoo of the magic pudding! Click on the NSW Library images from the book here and see what you think. Then again, Peter Carey has a thing about the magic pudding, so maybe…
Cross-posted at http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201....
Author: Fiona McGregor
Title: Indelible Ink
Publisher: Scribe 2010
ISBN: 9781921215966
Source: GoodReads Review Program
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 10, 2015
‘For the first time in years, the children were all at Sirius Cove for their mother’s birthday.’
Set in Sydney, shifting between Mosman and Surry Hills, this is the story of a segment of Marie King’s life. Marie, aged 59 and divorced, is unsatisfied with aspects of her life. Sure, she lives in a beautiful home in Mosman, and appears to have led a relatively privileged life. But somewhere along the way, Marie seems to have lost her sense of self. Increasingly, she is aware that she can no longer support the lifestyle she’s become used to on the allowance her ex-husband Ross pays. One day, bolstered by the bravery bestowed by alcohol, Marie wanders into a tattoo parlour. Her first tattoo leads to others, and introduces Marie (or sometimes reminds her) of other aspects of life.
Marie’s friends, and her children Clark, Blanche and Leon do not understand Marie’s need for (or is it an obsession with?) tattoos. For a while, it seems as though Marie is in control of her life, but is she?
I found this novel challenging, and interesting. Challenging because I found it very difficult to feel much sympathy for any of the characters. I don’t recognise much of the world that Marie, her friends and children inhabit. And yet, despite the privilege and opportunity conferred by wealth, few of the characters seemed comfortable or happy either with themselves or the world. I found the novel interesting because of the way Ms McGregor depicts Marie’s search for her own sense of life and what is important to her. There’s something about Marie’s desire to define herself separate from her family and her environment, about her appreciation of beauty in nature which held my attention. It is mid-summer, and Sydney is in drought. Many of the lives of those in the novel are also ‘in drought’, needing nourishment to meet their potential.
There is no happy ending in this novel, no chance for a happy new beginning. Life is often like that. But, to me at least, the Marie with whom we end the novel is a more fulfilled woman than the Marie with whom we commenced it.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Set in Sydney, shifting between Mosman and Surry Hills, this is the story of a segment of Marie King’s life. Marie, aged 59 and divorced, is unsatisfied with aspects of her life. Sure, she lives in a beautiful home in Mosman, and appears to have led a relatively privileged life. But somewhere along the way, Marie seems to have lost her sense of self. Increasingly, she is aware that she can no longer support the lifestyle she’s become used to on the allowance her ex-husband Ross pays. One day, bolstered by the bravery bestowed by alcohol, Marie wanders into a tattoo parlour. Her first tattoo leads to others, and introduces Marie (or sometimes reminds her) of other aspects of life.
Marie’s friends, and her children Clark, Blanche and Leon do not understand Marie’s need for (or is it an obsession with?) tattoos. For a while, it seems as though Marie is in control of her life, but is she?
I found this novel challenging, and interesting. Challenging because I found it very difficult to feel much sympathy for any of the characters. I don’t recognise much of the world that Marie, her friends and children inhabit. And yet, despite the privilege and opportunity conferred by wealth, few of the characters seemed comfortable or happy either with themselves or the world. I found the novel interesting because of the way Ms McGregor depicts Marie’s search for her own sense of life and what is important to her. There’s something about Marie’s desire to define herself separate from her family and her environment, about her appreciation of beauty in nature which held my attention. It is mid-summer, and Sydney is in drought. Many of the lives of those in the novel are also ‘in drought’, needing nourishment to meet their potential.
There is no happy ending in this novel, no chance for a happy new beginning. Life is often like that. But, to me at least, the Marie with whom we end the novel is a more fulfilled woman than the Marie with whom we commenced it.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 6, 2012
Well written, interesting, but also serving up a mix of rather unlikeable characters, this book did have me hooked pretty quickly. I found myself liking Marie but not her children, not even Leon. They were all so materialistic and self-centered.
Marie's ex and her friends were also just a bunch of rich creeps but this does change towards the end.
The evocative passages about the garden and tattooing were the highlights for me. Both come across as catharsis for big gaps in Marie that her life certainly doesn't heal or fill.
I think it is a very good read and would recommend it because it offers that view from the fence - one way there's the filthy rich, the other side there's the alternative, artistic, and often ostracised lives of tattooists. A kind of moralistic tale with "do not judge" underpinning the story.
Marie's ex and her friends were also just a bunch of rich creeps but this does change towards the end.
The evocative passages about the garden and tattooing were the highlights for me. Both come across as catharsis for big gaps in Marie that her life certainly doesn't heal or fill.
I think it is a very good read and would recommend it because it offers that view from the fence - one way there's the filthy rich, the other side there's the alternative, artistic, and often ostracised lives of tattooists. A kind of moralistic tale with "do not judge" underpinning the story.
December 30, 2024
Wanted to love it but the ending just sort of took me by surprise and I don’t feel that I got the closure I was hoping for! Loved the writing though and the descriptions were so detailed.
September 14, 2010
This is primarily the story - no, chunk of life - of 59 year old Marie King who has spent a privilleged life on Sydney's north shore. Those days are now over: hubby Ross has traded her in for a new, younger wife, the kids are all off involved in their own somewhat selfish affairs, and Marie is being forced to sell the mansion to pay her debts. Then one drunken day she heads into the seedier side of Sydney and gets a tattoo - and then another, and over the months becomes covered in them. She befriends tattooist Rys who introduces her to a different life, a more real life to Marie. But, of course, despite this small happiness, Marie is destined for unhappiness.
This book is an incredible feat of literary skill. If anything these characters are too real. The only one I really liked was Marie - oh, and her granddaughter, four year old Nell. Marie was the only reason I kept reading. I couldn't have given a pig's ring about her kids, or her friends. Paridoxically, as much as I wanted to spend time with Marie, I also didn't. Her story cuts very close to the bone: it reminded me far too much of my own mother's dissatisfaction with life and her seeminly sudden death from cancer. So, too, I suppose Marie's self-absorbed kids reminded me of myself.
For this reason I can't give Indelible Ink more stars. As wonderfully written as this is I'm not sure it's a good book to read. All I was left with was ugliness. Also I feel this book is too long. Quite a lot of the pages of dialogue could be trimmed back without losing anything; so, too could many of the scenes where nothing much happens. I realise the author intended this to be a study of human nature as much as a story, but seriously, we could have done without it.
I'm torn: I'd like to recommend this to everyone for the sheer beauty of its prose, but I'd also like to warn everyone off saying if you want mysery, watch the six o'clock news. It'll be over faster. This paragraph taken from page 121 is one of the reasons I would recommend this book:
'She thought about age as she made her way up the stairs, how it manifested first and foremost on the skin. Then grey hair, arthritis, old injuries waking up from the opiate of youth. Desire lessened with age but didn't vanish. Inside your fifty - or sixty-something-year-old body you continued lusting, your mind oblivious to the flesh crumbling around it.'
NOTE: For those who are concerned with such things, there are quite a few sexually explicit scenes in this book.
This book is an incredible feat of literary skill. If anything these characters are too real. The only one I really liked was Marie - oh, and her granddaughter, four year old Nell. Marie was the only reason I kept reading. I couldn't have given a pig's ring about her kids, or her friends. Paridoxically, as much as I wanted to spend time with Marie, I also didn't. Her story cuts very close to the bone: it reminded me far too much of my own mother's dissatisfaction with life and her seeminly sudden death from cancer. So, too, I suppose Marie's self-absorbed kids reminded me of myself.
For this reason I can't give Indelible Ink more stars. As wonderfully written as this is I'm not sure it's a good book to read. All I was left with was ugliness. Also I feel this book is too long. Quite a lot of the pages of dialogue could be trimmed back without losing anything; so, too could many of the scenes where nothing much happens. I realise the author intended this to be a study of human nature as much as a story, but seriously, we could have done without it.
I'm torn: I'd like to recommend this to everyone for the sheer beauty of its prose, but I'd also like to warn everyone off saying if you want mysery, watch the six o'clock news. It'll be over faster. This paragraph taken from page 121 is one of the reasons I would recommend this book:
'She thought about age as she made her way up the stairs, how it manifested first and foremost on the skin. Then grey hair, arthritis, old injuries waking up from the opiate of youth. Desire lessened with age but didn't vanish. Inside your fifty - or sixty-something-year-old body you continued lusting, your mind oblivious to the flesh crumbling around it.'
NOTE: For those who are concerned with such things, there are quite a few sexually explicit scenes in this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2015
I discovered this book only because I saw someone had chosen it for their June Literary Challenge and it sounded interesting. It was, I liked it, and I'm glad I joined the challenge to find a new (to me) author.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
It all rang true to me - the setting, the people, the language, and the relationships - old, new, fractured, mending. McGregor's an easy writer to read. She doesn't rely on two-dollar words to impress, as someone once referred to those annoying ones you know you should know but can't be bothered to look up.
Her style is smooth, and it was easy to feel the heat, the breeze off the harbour, the relief of the swim. The 'ink' side of the story was fascinating. I have lived both at The Cross and on Sydney's North Shore, so I was prepared to be nit-picky and critical. Instead, I enjoyed visiting them again through her eyes and appreciating the family's home in a 'special part of Mosman.
It was fun watching Marie bump back and forth between the Special People and new friends. And bump she did.
Family and old friends enter here and there, but it's Marie's story, and I did find myself getting annoyed at all the back story about her adult kids who didn't interest me as much. Maybe that's just me, since I felt like they were intruding into her space, and I would like to have known more about her background and less about theirs, especially as I didn't think they lent much to my understanding of Marie.
There were a few times where I was interrupted by a phrase that sounded 'writerly', as if it had been thought up and saved for future use. McGregor's writing isn't mostly like that, though - it's graceful and descriptive and flows along - so when a clever turn of phrase pops up, it's jarring, and reminds me I'm reading someone's 'work', not just immersed in the story. But that IS being nit-picky, and she doesn't deserve that from the likes of me.
All in all, I recommend it and I look forward to finding some more of her work (if it doesn't read like a 'work').
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
It all rang true to me - the setting, the people, the language, and the relationships - old, new, fractured, mending. McGregor's an easy writer to read. She doesn't rely on two-dollar words to impress, as someone once referred to those annoying ones you know you should know but can't be bothered to look up.
Her style is smooth, and it was easy to feel the heat, the breeze off the harbour, the relief of the swim. The 'ink' side of the story was fascinating. I have lived both at The Cross and on Sydney's North Shore, so I was prepared to be nit-picky and critical. Instead, I enjoyed visiting them again through her eyes and appreciating the family's home in a 'special part of Mosman.
It was fun watching Marie bump back and forth between the Special People and new friends. And bump she did.
Family and old friends enter here and there, but it's Marie's story, and I did find myself getting annoyed at all the back story about her adult kids who didn't interest me as much. Maybe that's just me, since I felt like they were intruding into her space, and I would like to have known more about her background and less about theirs, especially as I didn't think they lent much to my understanding of Marie.
There were a few times where I was interrupted by a phrase that sounded 'writerly', as if it had been thought up and saved for future use. McGregor's writing isn't mostly like that, though - it's graceful and descriptive and flows along - so when a clever turn of phrase pops up, it's jarring, and reminds me I'm reading someone's 'work', not just immersed in the story. But that IS being nit-picky, and she doesn't deserve that from the likes of me.
All in all, I recommend it and I look forward to finding some more of her work (if it doesn't read like a 'work').
July 16, 2011
I took a long time to get into this book. It's very Sydney, none of the characters are particularly likeable, and it's hard to feel sympathy for someone living in a six million dollar property on the water at Mossman who drunkenly runs up $50,000 on credit cards instead of getting a job. It's testament to McGregor's skills as a writer that I kept reading and ended up glad that I did. I don't really understand the obsession with tattoos, but I did understand why Marie, the book's 59 year old divorced middle-class protagonist succumbed to their painful allure. By the book's end they had become a symbol of authenticity and a way of taking what was important to her - the garden she had nurtured over a lifetime - with her, when she went. A fine book that won't be to everyone's taste.
September 6, 2010
It would be dishonest of me to review this book, considering I only made it one third through. If you liked "the slap" you might like this, but that's only a might. This book had a similar array of unsympathetic unlikeable characters, with not enough body in the story to get or keep me interested. The main character is a pathetic indecisive drunk - a late 50's separated mother of an assortment of children, who suddenly decides to start tattooing herself. She lives in beautiful affluent Mossman, and I just don't get her, or care enough to read any more. Sorry....
April 9, 2012
Could not bear the characters. I had more sympathy for the cat, Mopoke, than any of the human beings in this story. Pretentious, self indulgent rubbish. Could not wade my way through to the end.
June 6, 2018
So many times I have picked up a book that has been awarded a major literary prize (names withheld at authors' requests) & been disappointed. Or worse. Not this time. Ms McGregor's novel explores marriage, family, sibling rivalry, illicit affairs, class, money, privilege, property, home, & terminal illness. Oh, & the marking of one's skin. But it is not an easy book. Not because it is difficult to read; the author's skills are evident on every page & the writing is always accessible. But it explores all of its themes in a non-compromising fashion & is, at times, extremely confronting, to the point where I occasionally debated whether I wanted to proceed. I'm glad I did because this novel captures the human experience in all its glory & shame. The characters live & breathe &, at times, frustrate & even repel, but they exist in 3 dimensions. I feel that they will live on with me for a long time. Highly recommended for all those willing to immerse themselves in a book that will reflect the human experience in all its beauty & ugliness.
February 10, 2013
I am an absolute fan of this book. I've recommended it to lots of people and have had varied reactions. It's very Sydney-centric, most of the characters are not particularly sympathetic and the conclusion is inevitable but I was absolutely hooked. I learnt about the art and industry of tattooing and finally understood what makes people embrace body art. I loved McGregor's rich writing, I felt like I knew a lot of the characters and I felt their dilemmas deeply. I felt this was a compassionate book with a range of elements: family life, grief, love, attraction, body art, gardening, love of place, exploration of friendships. I can highly recommend it as a challenging and in-depth view of a woman, her hunger for life, her love of her imperfect family and her exploration of a new and profoundly different sense of self.
August 23, 2015
A very gritty, warts and all look at family life. Touching on cancer, tattoos, drugs, homosexuality, infidelity..I could go on. There are parts of the book that are so frank they are almost voyeuristic and I felt like I was intruding on a personal thing. Other times the descriptions were a a bit too graphic and somewhat gratuitous, almost coming as a slap.
Overall though a good story and a tragedy which unfolds and gathers steam as it goes.
Overall though a good story and a tragedy which unfolds and gathers steam as it goes.
November 20, 2018
I really loved this book from page one. Such clever sparse, pacey, writing. The characters were all so real, as was the sense of place. Because I felt like I knew them all, it felt like they were some neighbours. Such a worthy tome for the award of "The Age Book of The Year".
February 27, 2017
This is the second time I have read this book and I enjoyed it even more. At times raw and confronting, it would kick me in the gut, at others it wrapped me in a warm blanket. I laughed and I cried.
June 20, 2016
This book falls into my least favourite genre of "unpleasant people being unpleasant." Normally if I want to watch people I couldn't care less about make a complete hash of their lives and then moan about the thoroughly deserved consequences I'll go to work, but if you like to spend your spare time with emotional car wrecks with the sympathetic qualities of a broken bottle, then maybe this book is for you.
Well, perhaps that's a touch harsh. Some years ago after being scarred the "award winning" Jonathan Franzen "The Corrections" I swore I would stop feeling obliged to finish a book once I realised it was in the above category. So it says something about this one that I did stick it out to the end. The main character Marie is intermittently quite interesting. Her children, with whom we spend way too much time, are not. The author's clear fascination for tattoos and their subculture made the sections of the book dealing with Rhys the tattoo artist the standouts.
However, there was a lot of dross dealing with Sydney real estate obsession (yawn) and petty sibling resentments without them ever even giving us the cathartic release of a good all in barny or even a fist fight. No it's all snide asides and unsaid fuming here. Like I said, if I want that, I'll go to work, not spend my leisure hours marvelling at how accurately an author can recapture the most trivially grating aspects of character's lives.
What I'd probably enjoy a whole lot more would be a non fiction essay on tattoos from this author, rather than trying to jam what's clearly quite a passion for her into what proves to be an unworthy vessel of a novel.
Well, perhaps that's a touch harsh. Some years ago after being scarred the "award winning" Jonathan Franzen "The Corrections" I swore I would stop feeling obliged to finish a book once I realised it was in the above category. So it says something about this one that I did stick it out to the end. The main character Marie is intermittently quite interesting. Her children, with whom we spend way too much time, are not. The author's clear fascination for tattoos and their subculture made the sections of the book dealing with Rhys the tattoo artist the standouts.
However, there was a lot of dross dealing with Sydney real estate obsession (yawn) and petty sibling resentments without them ever even giving us the cathartic release of a good all in barny or even a fist fight. No it's all snide asides and unsaid fuming here. Like I said, if I want that, I'll go to work, not spend my leisure hours marvelling at how accurately an author can recapture the most trivially grating aspects of character's lives.
What I'd probably enjoy a whole lot more would be a non fiction essay on tattoos from this author, rather than trying to jam what's clearly quite a passion for her into what proves to be an unworthy vessel of a novel.
April 1, 2020
This is an unusual novel about a woman, Marie King, who at nearly 60, divorced and in danger of becoming an alcoholic, makes an impulsive visit to a tattoo parlour in Sydney's Kings Cross. Marie is asset rich (with a harbour-side property in Mosman) but income poor. The thing she loves most is her garden but she is psychologically adrift. Her decision to have at first one and then other tattoos introduces her to a completely different world. The ‘indelible ink’ of the tattoos begins to free her from her assumptions and even from her adult children with whom she has complex relationships. The latter part of the book, when Marie is facing cancer, is powerful. I didn’t like all of this book but it did make a strong impression on me. It contains some exquisite as well as confronting writing.
September 5, 2010
Change is certainly a theme in the narration of this tale - love, loss, illness, physical transformations... and similarly my feelings towards it have changed, as it unfolds it layers.
On many levels I can't relate to the characters - while the places are familiar, the people are not anything like the people I choose to surround myself with. But underlying the distain for most of the characters, is the revelation that maybe they are not so unlike who I think I am - they hurt, suffer, feel pain fear and misery, and ultimately make mistakes.
It is a long book at around 460 pages and at times I wanted to give up but I am almost at the end. Like the characters I need some sense of closure, to know where and when it will end.
On many levels I can't relate to the characters - while the places are familiar, the people are not anything like the people I choose to surround myself with. But underlying the distain for most of the characters, is the revelation that maybe they are not so unlike who I think I am - they hurt, suffer, feel pain fear and misery, and ultimately make mistakes.
It is a long book at around 460 pages and at times I wanted to give up but I am almost at the end. Like the characters I need some sense of closure, to know where and when it will end.
December 17, 2015
Oddly, I enjoyed this book. It is populated with unpleasant, materialist and hedonistic characters, whose lives unravel, collide and are occasionally redeemed - a very modern narrative which reminds me more than anything of a medieval morality play or works in the tradition of The Rake's Progress. There are moments of enlightenment, kindness and honesty - the closest the narrative gets to goodness or redemption.
Sydney, like the characters, is beautiful, brash, wasted, divided, spoiled. It tugs at our heartstrings even as it repels.
McGregor offers little hope for change. She does, however, understand human limitation, the consequences of self-indulgence and the persistence of our search for something more.
Sydney, like the characters, is beautiful, brash, wasted, divided, spoiled. It tugs at our heartstrings even as it repels.
McGregor offers little hope for change. She does, however, understand human limitation, the consequences of self-indulgence and the persistence of our search for something more.
February 7, 2012
I enjoyed the layers of this novel.
The imagery, the locality, the issues and people all worked well to create a snapshot of contemporary Sydney. Sometimes reading a novel is an escape, but sometimes it is more like an unexpected insight into a part of yourself - and that's what I got from this novel - a way of reflecting on my 10 years living in Sydney and grappling with the class, property, harbour, wealth, beauty and meanness of the place.
I would recommend this book widely, but expect that your personal mileage may vary.
The imagery, the locality, the issues and people all worked well to create a snapshot of contemporary Sydney. Sometimes reading a novel is an escape, but sometimes it is more like an unexpected insight into a part of yourself - and that's what I got from this novel - a way of reflecting on my 10 years living in Sydney and grappling with the class, property, harbour, wealth, beauty and meanness of the place.
I would recommend this book widely, but expect that your personal mileage may vary.
July 5, 2012
This book has beautiful setting of Sydney : created with warmth and reality. I liked the main character and her strength and determination after her husband leaves her.this is written with a very strong understanding of families , class structure in Sydney and the power of a determined woman. I understand Marie's thoughts and the connection with the artistic concept of the tattoos gives her strength. Her children are so well crafted - at times thoughtless at times selfish. Am now interested in reading more by Fiona Mcgregor.
December 16, 2011
Loved this book. Quirky, shocking in places and very down to earth. It follows a very rich Grandmother who after her divorce decides to get a tattoo when drunk. Really enjoyed the characters, the surprises and the way it was written. Will read more of hers.
August 25, 2012
Slightly unresolved toward the end. Not sure what to make of the fate of the protagonist.
Wasn't enamoured with the other characters and felt that the character of the tattoist, Rhys, could have been explored a little more.
Wasn't enamoured with the other characters and felt that the character of the tattoist, Rhys, could have been explored a little more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 9, 2016
So much more complex and raw and mean than I'd expected. Very much recommended for women over 40, and probably anyone else. This review from Lisa Hill is more eloquent than I could hope to be https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
July 21, 2010
This is a great book. Compelling, well-written, honest appraisal of humanity in all its contemptible glory. Well worth reading.
June 14, 2012
Frustrating. Good premise, but full of annoying characters and a plot that doesn't really go anywhere until the last third, when it heads into a rather regrettable direction.
January 31, 2021
The end of this book left me feeling empty, and hollow...which I think was part of the book's brilliance. Wonderfully written, the characters themselves were just plain unlikable. Their priority in life - money and status - lead to a rather emotionless and relationally barren existence, where they were all, some overtly, others under the surface, out for themselves. The brilliance of this book is that none of the characters grow or change at all. They had so many opportunities to make a fresh start, to really love one another, and yet, their hunger for wealth thwarted them every time. Amusingly, the "side characters" had more morality and kindness than the main cast. I didn't particulary identify with the main character, but that didn't detract from it at all.
My only complaint, echoed by other reviewers too, was the crass language. But even then, I wonder if the vulgar way the women referred to their own bodies, was meant to illustrate how much they detested being women. And so although slightly unbelievable, I can see how it may have had a purpose.
This book is a haunting warning about where we put our priorities - what we make an idol of eventually will destroy us. The idol of status bankrupted the characters souls, relationships and lives along with their bank accounts... and the book ends with no hope of any of them changing.
I would have loved to read this book in a book club, as I was bursting to share my thoughts and reactions once I'd read it.
One thing I will take away from this book, is when Marie's best friend opens up to her about their friendship, she reveals that she admires her for her independence. "I was a stay at home mum," Marie retorts, and the best friend reflects that Marie had her garden, a talent and a passion, whereas all the best friend had was "keeping up with the Joneses." As someone who has had the word "independent" used to describe me, when I feel anything but, through the dialogue between these two characters I finally understood what people must have meant. Marie was not vapid like the other housewives, she didn't care for fashions or trends or fitting in. Her passion was the garden, and although she felt small and uninteresting, her friend noticed the way she was set apart from the crowd, and admired her for it. The riddle of what a woman like her saw in Marie was resolved, and that is the highlight of the book for me.
My only complaint, echoed by other reviewers too, was the crass language. But even then, I wonder if the vulgar way the women referred to their own bodies, was meant to illustrate how much they detested being women. And so although slightly unbelievable, I can see how it may have had a purpose.
This book is a haunting warning about where we put our priorities - what we make an idol of eventually will destroy us. The idol of status bankrupted the characters souls, relationships and lives along with their bank accounts... and the book ends with no hope of any of them changing.
I would have loved to read this book in a book club, as I was bursting to share my thoughts and reactions once I'd read it.
One thing I will take away from this book, is when Marie's best friend opens up to her about their friendship, she reveals that she admires her for her independence. "I was a stay at home mum," Marie retorts, and the best friend reflects that Marie had her garden, a talent and a passion, whereas all the best friend had was "keeping up with the Joneses." As someone who has had the word "independent" used to describe me, when I feel anything but, through the dialogue between these two characters I finally understood what people must have meant. Marie was not vapid like the other housewives, she didn't care for fashions or trends or fitting in. Her passion was the garden, and although she felt small and uninteresting, her friend noticed the way she was set apart from the crowd, and admired her for it. The riddle of what a woman like her saw in Marie was resolved, and that is the highlight of the book for me.
June 21, 2019
A strange book for me but I did finally finish it. I almost gave up on it but I was on sick leave so maybe it was just how I felt at that point. It is well written it was just a hard book for me to read and I really felt sorry for Marie. She’s recently divorced after giving up her life and prospective career after becoming pregnant at University. She’s left in a big house in Mosman 3 children’s now left home and she has no income now. Her children have their own problems too and are busy. She’s also trying to sell her house which her husband gave her but the market has dropped and it’s not selling. It’s far too big and expensive for her to maintain.
Her actions are a cry for help as she gets deeper into debt and tries to keep up with their friends who still have money and know how to spend it. She’s so depressed and low one day at 59 years old she walks into a Tattoo parlour and meets Rhys a tattooist. She gets her first tattoo. They become friends and she becomes obsessed by getting more and more tattoos much to her friends and family’s disgust. Her conventional life changes and she goes with Rhys to some very unconventional places.
Depression is a horrible thing and I felt this was her reasoning as her children have flown the nest and she is also dropped by her friends and she’s lost the only life she’s ever known. I feel there’s no love lost as the so called friends are only interested in what new item you have bought and going to expensive restaurants.
The cleaning lady seems to be the only one who cares for her the most and still comes despite not getting paid until one day her son was there and she quietly mentioned it to him. Marie has a whirlwind romance but the guy is shocked at her mass of tattoos despite them being a work of art. She also becomes very ill. She knew she was but left it too late to have tests done and it’s not a very nice time for her. She meets another man in the hospital while having treatment and they hit it off but that’s short lived for obvious reasons. Rather depressing book but I’m glad I finished it!
Her actions are a cry for help as she gets deeper into debt and tries to keep up with their friends who still have money and know how to spend it. She’s so depressed and low one day at 59 years old she walks into a Tattoo parlour and meets Rhys a tattooist. She gets her first tattoo. They become friends and she becomes obsessed by getting more and more tattoos much to her friends and family’s disgust. Her conventional life changes and she goes with Rhys to some very unconventional places.
Depression is a horrible thing and I felt this was her reasoning as her children have flown the nest and she is also dropped by her friends and she’s lost the only life she’s ever known. I feel there’s no love lost as the so called friends are only interested in what new item you have bought and going to expensive restaurants.
The cleaning lady seems to be the only one who cares for her the most and still comes despite not getting paid until one day her son was there and she quietly mentioned it to him. Marie has a whirlwind romance but the guy is shocked at her mass of tattoos despite them being a work of art. She also becomes very ill. She knew she was but left it too late to have tests done and it’s not a very nice time for her. She meets another man in the hospital while having treatment and they hit it off but that’s short lived for obvious reasons. Rather depressing book but I’m glad I finished it!
July 31, 2012
[This review contains spoilers!!]
The thing that happened to me when I read this book was that I found myself constantly asking 'why?'...
And not in a life-altering/affirming way.
It was in a why should the main character, Marie, feel that way and why should she care about that?
We read this as a book club book and three of us didn’t finish it. I was nearly the fourth. I think one of the main reasons for all of those of us who struggled with it was, that we found it very hard to read about people with such material fortune being in such a stupid mess – yes money isn’t everything but at times you just wanted them to stop their whinging
Our heroine, Marie – who is a woman in her late fifties - was another issue for me, and at times she came across as merely pathetic, and her children were pretty ghastly people. The story takes time to talk not just from the perspective of Marie (in the third person) but also her three children who are all in their 30s - frankly it was enough reading to try to deal with Marie's issues, but, on the plus-side we did get a more rounded perspective, hearing from her children too.
As a reader I understood life had dealt Marie some rough blows, why she got to be the way she was – marrying at a young age due to pregnancy and then enduring a miscarriage later in life, as well as dealing with an adulterous husband living the life of riley as an advertising hot shot, while she was the wife who must entertain their friends and colleagues and plaster on the good wifely smile. So she spent a large portion of her adult life drunk. And many of us might have done the same if we were as miserable as her.
However, with this book, to me it merely just boils down to one factor - CHOICE! My underlying feeling was always 'there is another option – there always is'. And she had three healthy children – a great blessing, a beautiful home etc. I think for MY choice I would just have much rather read about someone who was more of a heroine. I mean at times, I just wanted to shake her.
And not because she got tattoos. Again, I understood this part of it – it was her rebellion, her getting the chance to be free and do as she pleased after having felt trapped and in no control of her life for decades. Perhaps it is about my being in the wrong generation. Perhaps it is about misunderstanding our heroine. I felt like saying to her ‘why did you stick around in that marriage?’. My own mother is of the same generation, and she didn’t stick around in her first marriage either. So maybe for Marie it was about her Catholicism. Ironically though, on her death bed she wants to banish this deeply embedded religion from her life.
Or maybe I just didn’t enjoy the book because the plot seemed so dragged out, and some of it so ethereal. At times I was thinking – so when is this friendship really going to kick in, like the blurb on the cover says it does? This was in regards Marie and the relationship with her tattooist, Rhys. I noticed they had a rapport but it took until the last hundred or so pages, for me to realize that oh, they are like bezzies now. OK, missed that.
Something else I disliked about Marie’s character was how she was obsessed with what everyone thinks of her, desperately trying both get their attention and at the same time shun it away. Shouldn't she be happy in herself? I guess that was the problem. But I wanted to feel like she was on a journey to rectify that but instead it just seemed as though she drifted. Drifted into tattooing (her now, and her future), but clung to the gardening (her comfort and her past), and was still obsessed with what here children thought about her whilst at the same time judging them.
Characters in general, not just because of their circumstance and build, but also because of the way they author wrote about them, were very hard to find empathy for. I found the author occasionally wrote weird things about what the characters were thinking that I just didn't comprehend: sometimes it felt like it was just a mute character note.
And whilst I understand that the characters were supposed to be flawed, it was almost asthough they were flawed to the point you couldn’t believe in them. It seemed to me like they were a bunch of intelligent, well-educated adults - hypocritical, prejudice and of course, ultimately wallowing in their own doom and gloom. I think the point is, if I was acquainted with people like that I would have no time for them so trying to give my time to a book about four of them just didn't work well.
So suffice to say, here is a book I didn’t enjoy because of its substantial length and the narration from the perspective of a set of characters I essentially loathed.
Until I got about one hundred pages from the end.
Then something changed. When Marie was diagnosed with cancer I am unsure whether this evoked some sympathy within me or whether the tone of the book just took a turn towards something more real, something more heroic. Suddenly Marie was dealing with something really devastating and something that she truly couldn’t control. Oh the irony.
And of course, we saw some human qualities in Blanche, her daughter too – with her pro-life choice. In fact, I even felt real sisterhood with Blanche over the death of the family cat. Whilst Mopoke dying was probably semi-amusing to some, I have to say, this is the one thing in the book that actually moved me – it kind of broke my heart a little. I felt incensed at the men for being so useless. And of course the death of the cat was incredibly symbolic – particularly with them all of them arguing over what to do with the cat – instead of griping about how much money they’d get when their mother passed away.
I mean seriously - what kind of household is this?? I can't imagine my siblings and I being so far up our own backsides we argue over burying a cat, at such a time, but I guess it was supposed to be happening as a result of emotions running high and undoubtedly McGregor meant it to be a little black humour. And poor little Nell (Marie’s grandchild) who was once again let down by the failings of her father, uncle and aunty who could not see past their own egos.
The plus side was I loved the descriptions and perceptions of Sydney and Sydney-siders. I only hope if characters out there like these exist that they don't end up in my circle!!
The thing that happened to me when I read this book was that I found myself constantly asking 'why?'...
And not in a life-altering/affirming way.
It was in a why should the main character, Marie, feel that way and why should she care about that?
We read this as a book club book and three of us didn’t finish it. I was nearly the fourth. I think one of the main reasons for all of those of us who struggled with it was, that we found it very hard to read about people with such material fortune being in such a stupid mess – yes money isn’t everything but at times you just wanted them to stop their whinging
Our heroine, Marie – who is a woman in her late fifties - was another issue for me, and at times she came across as merely pathetic, and her children were pretty ghastly people. The story takes time to talk not just from the perspective of Marie (in the third person) but also her three children who are all in their 30s - frankly it was enough reading to try to deal with Marie's issues, but, on the plus-side we did get a more rounded perspective, hearing from her children too.
As a reader I understood life had dealt Marie some rough blows, why she got to be the way she was – marrying at a young age due to pregnancy and then enduring a miscarriage later in life, as well as dealing with an adulterous husband living the life of riley as an advertising hot shot, while she was the wife who must entertain their friends and colleagues and plaster on the good wifely smile. So she spent a large portion of her adult life drunk. And many of us might have done the same if we were as miserable as her.
However, with this book, to me it merely just boils down to one factor - CHOICE! My underlying feeling was always 'there is another option – there always is'. And she had three healthy children – a great blessing, a beautiful home etc. I think for MY choice I would just have much rather read about someone who was more of a heroine. I mean at times, I just wanted to shake her.
And not because she got tattoos. Again, I understood this part of it – it was her rebellion, her getting the chance to be free and do as she pleased after having felt trapped and in no control of her life for decades. Perhaps it is about my being in the wrong generation. Perhaps it is about misunderstanding our heroine. I felt like saying to her ‘why did you stick around in that marriage?’. My own mother is of the same generation, and she didn’t stick around in her first marriage either. So maybe for Marie it was about her Catholicism. Ironically though, on her death bed she wants to banish this deeply embedded religion from her life.
Or maybe I just didn’t enjoy the book because the plot seemed so dragged out, and some of it so ethereal. At times I was thinking – so when is this friendship really going to kick in, like the blurb on the cover says it does? This was in regards Marie and the relationship with her tattooist, Rhys. I noticed they had a rapport but it took until the last hundred or so pages, for me to realize that oh, they are like bezzies now. OK, missed that.
Something else I disliked about Marie’s character was how she was obsessed with what everyone thinks of her, desperately trying both get their attention and at the same time shun it away. Shouldn't she be happy in herself? I guess that was the problem. But I wanted to feel like she was on a journey to rectify that but instead it just seemed as though she drifted. Drifted into tattooing (her now, and her future), but clung to the gardening (her comfort and her past), and was still obsessed with what here children thought about her whilst at the same time judging them.
Characters in general, not just because of their circumstance and build, but also because of the way they author wrote about them, were very hard to find empathy for. I found the author occasionally wrote weird things about what the characters were thinking that I just didn't comprehend: sometimes it felt like it was just a mute character note.
And whilst I understand that the characters were supposed to be flawed, it was almost asthough they were flawed to the point you couldn’t believe in them. It seemed to me like they were a bunch of intelligent, well-educated adults - hypocritical, prejudice and of course, ultimately wallowing in their own doom and gloom. I think the point is, if I was acquainted with people like that I would have no time for them so trying to give my time to a book about four of them just didn't work well.
So suffice to say, here is a book I didn’t enjoy because of its substantial length and the narration from the perspective of a set of characters I essentially loathed.
Until I got about one hundred pages from the end.
Then something changed. When Marie was diagnosed with cancer I am unsure whether this evoked some sympathy within me or whether the tone of the book just took a turn towards something more real, something more heroic. Suddenly Marie was dealing with something really devastating and something that she truly couldn’t control. Oh the irony.
And of course, we saw some human qualities in Blanche, her daughter too – with her pro-life choice. In fact, I even felt real sisterhood with Blanche over the death of the family cat. Whilst Mopoke dying was probably semi-amusing to some, I have to say, this is the one thing in the book that actually moved me – it kind of broke my heart a little. I felt incensed at the men for being so useless. And of course the death of the cat was incredibly symbolic – particularly with them all of them arguing over what to do with the cat – instead of griping about how much money they’d get when their mother passed away.
I mean seriously - what kind of household is this?? I can't imagine my siblings and I being so far up our own backsides we argue over burying a cat, at such a time, but I guess it was supposed to be happening as a result of emotions running high and undoubtedly McGregor meant it to be a little black humour. And poor little Nell (Marie’s grandchild) who was once again let down by the failings of her father, uncle and aunty who could not see past their own egos.
The plus side was I loved the descriptions and perceptions of Sydney and Sydney-siders. I only hope if characters out there like these exist that they don't end up in my circle!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 27, 2018
This book was very tedious at times, but I found it was okay to read in small doses (although it then took a long time). Maybe if you were a divorced millionaire living in Sydney you might relate to it more. The problem is there wasn't much of a plot. It was just about some pretty unlikable characters and we kind of followed them around a bit through a section of their lives. The whole focus on selling the rich Sydney harbourside mansion and all the indecision and grief around this became tiresome. The main character grew on me slowly, and I don't regret reading the book because the writing was definitely high quality and I have a better insight into some of the urges to get tattoos and how people might react to them, and also to the experience of dealing with a quickly-progressing terminal diagnosis, but really it's probably more like a 2 or 2.5 star book for me. The grown-up family dynamics were a little bit interesting at times. The ending, as in the last paragraph, was pretty lacklustre I thought.
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