There’s a chaotic and, at times, decidedly dotty feel to British author Fay Weldon’s latest opus, which envelops you with all the friendliness of a warm coat as its plot unfolds, then pokes you in the ribs with sharp characterisation.
Hovering in the air, above doorways and around corners, are the kehua – Maori spirits unfinished with their charges – as they hang in limbo between life and death and summon up dark terrors from the past. In the here and now, this is a tale of women – grandmothers, mothers, daughters and great-granddaughters – all battling against the usual path, trying to “have it all” and often losing their way in the process. Not least among these is the author herself, who appears like a clacking puppet mistress, banging on her keyboard in her gloomy spider-ridden basement, shaping what becomes a genuinely warm and fanciful journey.
IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT BY JUDY HORACEK, SCRIBE, $29.95.
It’s impossible not to giggle at Judy Horacek’s smart yet dreamily inventive cartoons and illustrations, seen here in their technicolour glory in this seventh collection of Judy’s published sketches.
The Australian artist’s observations on the absurdities of modern life and witty takes on environmental and global issues bring welcome levity to even the darkest scenarios. Read them and weep – with laughter!
DEAD MAN’S CHEST BY KERRY GREENWOOD, ALLEN & UNWIN, $22.99.
Hot-blooded private detective Phryne Fisher and her bathing dress – “no back and hardly any front” – head to Queenscliff for a holiday.
Along for the ride are her adopted daughters, bookish Jane and culinary Ruth, devoted maid Dot and hound Molly, who all take off in the roaring ’20s Hispano-Suiza for this 18th murder mystery in the hit series. Queenscliff “used to be very select … but since the railway went through, we have lots of trippers … pork pie hats and eating ice-cream in the streets”, warns “suicidally blonde” neighbour Mrs Mason, the first of Greenwood’s delightful cast of characters. Missing housekeepers and secretive Satie-swaying, patchouli-soaked surrealists are all part of the scene, plus, of course, a whiff of delicious murder.
MARY ANN IN AUTUMN BY ARMISTEAD MAUPIN, RANDOM HOUSE, $32.95.
San Francisco was captured in fading sunset by novelist Armistead Maupin three decades ago, when, pitching an idea for a daily serial to the San Francisco Chronicle featuring the tales of secretary Mary Ann Singleton and her best friend, gay gardener Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, he defined the city forever in the days of drugs, discos and never-ending rainbows.
His six Tales Of The City novels were best-sellers and colourfully adapted into a high-rating TV mini-series. Mary Ann In Autumn reunites the surviving original cast of characters, 20 years after Mary Ann left San Fran to pursue a TV career in New York. HIV has wreaked havoc, but none of the original humour and courage is lost. Legendary Barbary Lane landlady Mrs Madrigal is in her 80s and as her former ingénue, Mary Ann, now 57, returns for comfort from calamity, she is embraced by a neighbourhood of friends who never forgot her. Achingly nostalgic, but still wickedly irreverent.
THE WEEKEND BY BERNHARD SCHLINK, WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON, $29.99.
Bernhard Schlink writes so elegantly, with such calm simplicity – remember The Reader? – that he can pull you into the darkest and most difficult subjects before you realise where he’s taking you.
In this case, it’s the weekend reunion of a group of one-time members and supporters of the Baader-Meinhof gang, who have gathered to celebrate the release of Jörg – convicted murderer and terrorist – after 24 years in prison. These lovers and friends have left their violent pasts behind and now want to help Jörg, too, adapt to freedom. Yet, as the days pass, tension builds. Their memories conflict, they challenge each other’s commitment and motives, and old jealousies and betrayals bubble to the surface. It’s a subtle and strangely tender novel about people who have put themselves outside the law struggling to find their way back in – uncertain they ever can or will.
THE SMALL HAND: A GHOST STORY BY SUSAN HILL, ALLEN & UNWIN, $24.99.
From the mistress of the modern ghost story comes this small and perfectly formed tale that, even weeks after reading, I cannot get out of my head. It haunts me, as a good ghost story should.
Our questionable hero is antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow, who gets lost while driving along remote country lanes and, as dusk falls, comes upon a dilapidated and apparently abandoned house. Wandering through the decaying garden, he feels “a small hand creep into my right one … its fingers curled themselves trustingly into my palm” – but there is no child standing beside him. So starts a thrillingly creepy tale, which is impossible to put down until finished, reminding us in the most subtle way that the taint of sin blights all that it touches. A classic ghost story message, superbly updated.
FREEDOM BY JONATHAN FRANZEN, FOURTH ESTATE, $32.99.
The hype and the weight of expectation might well have sunk a lesser book, but Franzen delivers with a better, wiser, more dazzling novel even than the one which made his name, The Corrections.
He takes one picture-perfect, liberal, Mid-western family – college sweethearts Patty and Walter Berglund and their two teenage kids – and unravels their lives in wildly unexpected ways, touching lightly as he goes on a swag of issues ranging from the impossibility of parenting to the wages of suburban sprawl and the liabilities of freedom. Yet Franzen never bangs you over the head with his bigger picture, keeping the focus so close and personal that you get to love these wayward Berglunds and finish the book, for all its length, not wanting to let them go. You also realise that what you’ve actually been racing through, turning pages as fast as you can, is a shrewd analysis of both the comedy and tragedy of modern America. A masterclass in the novelist’s art.
MY LAST DUCHESS BY DAISY GOODWIN, HEADLINE REVIEW, $29.99.
This stylish historical novel, set at the turn of the 19th century, gives us beautiful clothes and lavish jewels … a British duke in need of a rich wife … and a lively American heiress with a mother ambitious for her to “marry well”.
And so Cora Cash, the toast of New York, is launched onto the trans-Atlantic “marriage market” where her fortune is seen as fair exchange for the title of Ivo, Duke of Wareham. Yet is the duke after more than Cora’s millions? And now she has the ring, can she win his heart? In short – will love triumph over money? It’s a great subject – Edith Wharton and Henry James were similarly intrigued by the meeting of wealthy Americans and aristocratic English – and Daisy Goodwin (chair of judges for the 2010 Orange Prize) has delivered us the full period drama, which anyone with even the slightest taste for ripped bodices and gilded drawing rooms – I raise my hand on both – will be bound to enjoy.
Following their Junior MasterChef performance, 12-year-old “food nerds” Isabella and Sofia have plans for their own food empire. We chart their rising stars.
Here’s a sentence you don’t hear many 12-year-olds uttering: “I really liked making Adriano Zumbo’s Pear Perfection; it was so much fun”. And here’s another couple it’s safe to bet you won’t hear tripping from the lips of too many pre-teens: “Smoked eel is actually really nice”; and “I was going to order the pork belly, but finally decided on the duck confit and the sea pearls”.
Even in the post-MasterChef world in which we currently live – a world in which almost everyone knows their coulis from their confit and their snake beans from their snow egg – the culinary knowledge of your average adolescent doesn’t stretch all that much beyond the basics.
Yet the Junior MasterChef twins, the all-conquering Queensland duo of Isabella and Sofia, are anything but average. A fact you glean the moment you step into their world.
Speak to Isabella and Sofia about their experiences on the top-rating TV program and they are effusive. When Issy was proclaimed the winner she was “speechless! I was like, ‘Oh, my God! Seriously?’” During six weeks in the MasterChef kitchen, she survived multiple eliminations, endured numerous pressure tests and “plated up” a series of dishes mature beyond her years.
It was, she says, bittersweet to have to beat her own twin sister for the title, but “we were always in this together as a team. My success was always going to be Sof’s success and vice versa”. And, besides, the celebrity that has accompanied the twins’ starring role on prime-time telly has not been without its charms. “It’s fun, but it’s also a bit weird,” says Isabella. “Even at school, we’ve been giving out autographs – there are all these girls with my signature on their maths book.
“I was walking to the bus stop the other day and a couple of kids with their mum were like, ‘Oh, there’s Issy from MasterChef’ – which is kind of cool.”
Mum Sylvana calls her daughters “food nerds”, a label they are only too willing to wear. “One night in Sydney, we went with the other finalists to Billy Kwong for dinner,” recalls Sofia. “And, afterwards, we went back home and Jack had the Heston Blumenthal cookbook and we had it out on our laps, and we were just going through it going, ‘Oh, my God! Look at that!’ ”
Having spent so much time in the company of their fellow mini-foodies and shared such a unique experience with them, the girls are still in regular contact with the other contestants. Fellow finalists Jack and Pierre crop up in conversation with notable regularity. “We talk to Pierre and Jack almost every day,” says Issy. “They’re really nice boys. We’re planning a reunion with all our families over the Christmas holidays.”
Yet, for the time being, there’s their shared passion for music (Issy plays the cello and Sofia the violin) plus the serious business of empire building to be considered. Determined to open their own chain of restaurants called “IsSofia” – with outlets in all Australian capital cities and an outpost in Sicily – the twins intend to pursue a passion that is very much a family affair. “Food is like the thing that we do as a family,” says Sofia. “We talk about food, we cook together and we love eating together. It’s a huge part of our life.”
Read more of this story in the December issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Your say: What do you think of this story? How much do you think our capacity for happiness is inherited and how much is influenced by our choices? Share with us below.
She’s the most powerful woman on earth. A nod from Oprah Winfrey means instant success and millions of women live by her simple but powerful mantra – live your best life. As Queen Oprah brings 300 of her biggest fans to Sydney for the decade’s most anticipated live shows, Sharon Krum reveals the secrets behind her amazing rise.
Oprah Winfrey knows the exact hour she decided to begin evolving into “Oprah” – the woman recently named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine. It’s a rare thing to see it and Oprah would probably call it a lesson, a gift.
“I was looking at a skinhead show [in 1988], and I said to my staff, ‘That’s the show that caused me to do television differently’,” she told TV Guide recently. “What I learned from that is you cannot allow yourself to be a vehicle that promotes the energy of hatred in any form. That was life-changing for me.”
And so Oprah, 56, began making over her show, just as she had made over her own life, filling it with stories and people who informed, motivated, taught, excited and challenged us to be our very best selves.
She became our friend and New-Age spirit guide, confidante to celebrities and champion of the voiceless and abused. She told devotees not just to listen to their souls, but how. It turned her into the most famous talk show host in history, but it’s what Oprah did with her success that the best fortune teller wouldn’t have seen in the cards.
She stepped out of our TV screens and became a mogul – a billionaire businesswoman who runs Harpo Studios, a philanthropist, school builder, TV, theatre, radio and film producer, star maker, creator of the world’s biggest book club, O magazine founder, actress, endorser of presidential candidates, and, this month, the person who can turn the Opera House into the “Oprah House”.
“She’s talented, ambitious, smart and has this entrepreneurial instinct that few have matched,” says Professor Robert Thompson of New York’s Syracuse University, an expert in television and popular culture. “But the key to Oprah is her unique biography and her ability to seem so intimate with us.
“Forget being born with a silver spoon in her mouth, Oprah wasn’t born with a spoon,” he says. (Oprah grew up in poverty in Mississippi). “She confesses to us about her childhood abuse, her problems with weight and she allows us to think we can reinvent ourselves, too.”
“The show hasn’t been a big part of my life. It’s been my life,” Oprah told TV Guide. “I didn’t have children. I had the show.” That show and its message made her a powerhouse, but as Oprah herself has said, “Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.”
Read more of this story in the December issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Your say: What do you think of this story? Who do you think has shaped our world this year? Share with us below.
