The Place on Dalhousie in Aussie Readers

Apr 27, 2019 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it it was amazing

Shelves: provided-by-publisher, aussie-author, arc-are

If you are familiar with award winning author Melina Marchetta you will delight in revisiting familiar characters from Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son in The Place on Dalhousie.

If you are not, you will be charmed by the characters you meet, and eager to devour Marchetta’s backlist when you have finished this wonderfully touching novel of home, family and friendship.

After Rosie Gennaro and Jimmy Hailler cross paths and enjoy a brief fling while travelling through Queensland, neither expect If you are familiar with award winning author Melina Marchetta you will delight in revisiting familiar characters from Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son in The Place on Dalhousie.

If you are not, you will be charmed by the characters you meet, and eager to devour Marchetta’s backlist when you have finished this wonderfully touching novel of home, family and friendship.

After Rosie Gennaro and Jimmy Hailler cross paths and enjoy a brief fling while travelling through Queensland, neither expect to see one another again, but fifteen months later, Jimmy learns Rosie has given birth to his son.

Rosie has reluctantly returned to the house on Dalhousie Street in Sydney, the home she once shared with her family, before her mother succumbed to cancer, before her father’s sudden death, but in which now her hated stepmother, Martha resides, to raise her son.

The house on Dalhousie is more than just a home to Rosie, it is all she has left of everything she has lost. As far as she is concerned Martha, despite being the legal owner of the house, is an interloper with no legitimate claim. The two live together as if strangers, Marta is no more fond of her sullen stepdaughter than Rosie is of her. Marchetta explores this complicated relationship, and it’s progression, thoughtfully.

Rosie is an abrasive character, consumed by anger, guilt and bitterness connected to her mother’s illness, her father’s remarriage, and his sudden death. I found it difficult to like her initially, she comes across as a self involved brat, but slowly, for the sake of her son, she begins to relax her defences. The author’s development of Rosie feels authentic, the change in her is gradual, and realistically limited.

Jimmy’s entry into the tense and awkward situation at the Dalhousie house is a catalyst to soften the enmity between Rosie and Martha. Having been abandoned by his own parents, Jimmy, though hesitant, is determined know his son and meet his responsibilities. I quickly grew very fond of Jimmy, who has had a difficult and far from blameless life, but who is decent and loyal. Jimmy’s friendships with his high school mates are his anchor, and give him support as he grapples with the uncertainty of his future.

For all the authenticity of Marchetta’s characters, and their stories, in The Place on Dalhousie there is the lightest touch of magical realism, a coincidence that closes a circle in a way that could have felt melodramatic, but instead felt right and true.

A beguiling story of loneliness and connection, of home, of family and friendship, of belonging, The Place on Dalhousie is a captivating novel, I was smiling so widely during the last chapter my cheeks hurt. ...more

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Apr 04, 2019 Bree T rated it it was amazing

Shelves: contemporary

I feel like I have been waiting for this book my whole life.

That is of course, not true. I never read Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son until 2011 or 2012. But I feel like ever since I read both of those I’ve wanted Jimmy Hailler to have his own book. And obviously I’ve not been alone in that. I feel like I’ve been around for this core group of friends for so long, I’ve watched them go from a bunch of thrown together high school students to young adults negotiating that life post-high school I feel like I have been waiting for this book my whole life.

That is of course, not true. I never read Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son until 2011 or 2012. But I feel like ever since I read both of those I’ve wanted Jimmy Hailler to have his own book. And obviously I’ve not been alone in that. I feel like I’ve been around for this core group of friends for so long, I’ve watched them go from a bunch of thrown together high school students to young adults negotiating that life post-high school and now getting to the stage where it’s setting up life forever.

I’ve seen it said that this can be read stand alone and look, it probably can. I know people who have done it. But I’m going to go out there and say I don’t recommend it. Because this is like a three part journey and you get to know everyone so well in Saving Francesca. They are this group of people that became friends because of proximity and circumstance but they made it a choice to keep coming back together, to keep choosing each other. When you step into this book, you know who each and everyone of them is and how they got there.

Except Rosie. Rosie is new. Rosie is in QLD, having fled the family home that her father built so painstakingly for their family. Rosie’s mother died before it was finished and then not even a year later, her father remarried. Now her father is dead too and it’s Rosie’s stepmother Martha that lives alone in the house that Seb built. Rosie is running and Jimmy is searching when they meet during a flood and it’s something temporary even though Jimmy gives Rosie his number. When Rosie has need to use it, it’s still some time before Jimmy gets the message and then he finds his life irreversibly changed.

I’ve said this before, probably said it so many times but I’m not sure there’s an author out there that writes characters in pain better than Melina Marchetta. She manages to convey that pain and anguish in such beautiful ways so that it becomes like your own. You live and breathe her characters and it’s like that in every book. And I think it’s a difficult thing to do because it can so easily stray into overdramatic territory, or ring a bit false. But I’m never more invested than I am in a Marchetta book and it’s even more so when there are characters that I feel I know so well. Frankie, Will, Tom, Tara, Justine, Siobhan and Jimmy have this connection and even though they may come and go as life dictates, they are the closest of friends without making a big deal about it. There are private jokes ahoy (it’s not fucking Melbourne) but what they do is show up. And Jimmy, who has searched for a family, you have one mate. You’ve created one with Rosie and you’ve created one with your friends. It may not be the same……but it’s there and it’s real.

It’s tough being a stepmother (and I should know). It’s probably equally tough being a stepdaughter. And it’s even harder when the thing that tied you to each other is no longer around. Both Rosie and Martha lay claim to the house and when Rosie finally returns home, neither will move out and relinquish their claim on it. They exist separately to each other, one upstairs and one downstairs, barely interacting and when they do it’s fraught with tension. Martha has been through some things too – she’s been grieving but now her life seems like there are possibilities for the future, but she has to make some tough decisions, ones that won’t make things with Rosie any easier. Jimmy becomes the person in the middle that starts to bind them together, to break down the tensions, sort of the same way he did with Frankie’s mother in Saving Francesca. Jimmy has never been afraid to jump in there – he was that irrepressible kid in high school that kind of just attached himself to Frankie and followed her home one day and became part of her life. He has fears in this novel, deep fears of his own ability and adequacy to do this when he’s had so little in the way of role models to show him the way. But Jimmy is more than just the sum of his biological parts and he’s had plenty of influence from other people he’s not related to and these days, plenty of support. Him and Rosie both have realisations to make about their village and who populates it.

I read this on a plane and unfortunately I had to leave it behind at my parents’ place when I flew back because my carry on luggage was overweight and they slugged me 60 bucks on the flight up. I didn’t want to pay that on the way back as well so I left behind everything I felt I wouldn’t need or that would weigh it down, until I see my parents again. I’m already regretting leaving this. Because I want to read it again. I devoured it kind of greedily on the plane, because I’d been wanting a book about Jimmy for so long and I wanted to see (needed to know) how things were going to turn out for him. I wish I had it again to read it slower, second time around. To really absorb everything and just take in the little details and moments. I will get the chance to read it again and I’m telling myself that the wait will make it all the more worth it. I re-read Saving Francesca in preparation for this but I didn’t get to The Piper’s Son. I think I’d like to read all 3 one after the other, just to relive the journey in full.

I am a broken record when it comes to Melina Marchetta but she can do no wrong when it comes to books that hit me right in the heart. ...more

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Aug 03, 2019 Marg rated it it was amazing

4.5/5

What do you call an audiobook that you can't stop listening to? I have done nothing this afternoon other than sit in the car in the driveway and then when I made the move inside I kept on listening to it.

so good to get the culmination of story that began in Saving Francesca and then continued in The Pipers Son.

...more

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Nov 02, 2024 Tien rated it really liked it

Shelves: australia, own, australian-author, contemporary

Such a lovely easy read! I wanted to say simple but it's not quite right. I'm thinking simple in that this felt like a very real - set in the inner west suburbs of Sydney and all the things you find there including multicultural feel even though the area is heavily populated by Italian immigrants.

For those who don't know, the author is well known for her work Looking for Alibrandi which is about a teenager growing up in a very Italian family and having to struggle to adjust to the world outside ...more

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Nov 07, 2019 Kat at Book Thingo rated it liked it

Shelves: australian-authors, fiction-commercial, romance-series

I reserve the right to add more stars, but I think I need to reread this one a few times to properly appreciate it.

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Feb 12, 2022 Kalliste rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian

I recently did a re-read of Saving Francesca and The Piper's Son after finding out about The Place on Dalhousie.

I enjoyed this more than The Piper's Son, even if Rosie was a little unbearable. There was a lot of grief here, as with the other two books, but also a lot of hope.

It was great to see more of Jimmy and find out what had happened to him during the time of The Piper's Son.

Some have complained of too many characters, but I think that is just how Marchetta writes. Big families and communi ...more

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