Moth to the Flame, by Joy Dettman, Pan Macmillan Australia, $32.99.
“You’re an interesting study, kiddo. You’ve got a 40-year-old seamstress’s hands, the look of a Botticelli angel and you play cards like a mafia boss …”
Country Victorian author Joy Dettman knows how to write strong women, and 22-year-old mother of three illegitimate children, one-time songstress Jenny Morrison is at her satisfying best in this third novel in the Woody Creek series.
It’s 1946 and Jenny’s one-true love, Jim, father of her youngest, is missing in action. Australia’s young men are dying in prison camps and the old ‘uns are pacing verandas cursing their womenfolk: “She’s plain as mud, tongue as bitter as gall … useless as a woman … can’t iron a shirt, make a decent cup of tea …” berates one.
Dettman’s ingenious, inspirational post-war women deftly dodge the bullets and “the bastardry of men”, all the while caring for their brood. Jenny gets a roof for her lot with biker boy Ray, in return for “wifely duties”.
She “washes him off” after Friday night sex, and twice aborts his babies. Dettman’s device of piercing, poetic, staccato refrains, slice through the nightly slurs of “slut” and the pain of a lifetime of separation:
“Jimmy scooping ice-cream from a boat-shaped dish … Sail me away. Sail me away from this place,” remembers Jenny, to soothe herself, as she recoils yet again — “like a rubber band” — refusing to lie down as life deals its latest lousy hand.
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