Mmm, I do love it when an author skewers the more tawdry aspects of contemporary life!
New Zealander Emily Perkins is the author of a collection of shoMmm, I do love it when an author skewers the more tawdry aspects of contemporary life!
New Zealander Emily Perkins is the author of a collection of short stories Not Her Real Name and Other Stories (1996); and the novels: Leave Before You Go (1998, on my TBR); The New Girl (2001); Novel about My Wife (2008, see my review) and The Forrests (2012). She is also a columnist and a screenwriter, a teacher of creative writing and was the host of TVNZ7’s book programme The Good Word. Her latest release Lioness is set in Wellington NZ where she is now resident after a career which includes teaching in the UK, India, and China.
For readers whose mental image of New Zealand features pristine scenery and lots of sheep, Lioness offers an urban landscape and a world of wealth and privilege. (If you've ever watched Grand Designs New Zealand you will know that there are some really (really) rich Kiwis who exemplify the kind of inequitable society that has emerged in late stage capitalism here in Australia too. (If you have some spare millions you can buy one those palatial extravaganzas, there were six on the market on the day I looked, see here.)
The central characters in Lioness are a husband and wife power couple: Trevor is a developer under scrutiny because of some shady planning deal on a waterfront hotel, and Therese runs a chain of lifestyle boutiques, which she's about to expand into Sydney. (Where they will retire to a suitably posh address.)
We visited Wellington in 2019 so I can attest to how well the setting is realised. I'm very glad we didn't experience the terrifying plane landing that Therese describes.
The plane jolted, my champagne glass nearly snatched out of my hand by an unseen force. Landing in Wellington was infamously hairy, and even a jet like this could shake about in turbulence. The seatbelt light dinged on repeat. I drained my drink and tucked the glass into the seat pocket. Trevor was engrossed in the spreadsheet on his laptop, headphones on. We lifted and dropped, plateauing with another bump. I reached for his forearm and he unhooked his headphones. At the next bang of air, he closed the laptop. We held hands, our fingers interlaced, as around us people gasped and yelped in the shaking cabin. At the top of the galley the air stewards stared into the middle distance from their perches. If the plane crashes, I thought, it won't matter which class we are in. Another part of me thought, it will never crash with Trevor on board.
The next lift in the air — almost sweet, weightless — was followed by the sharpest drop yet, and someone screamed, and a woman behind us in the cabin started singing 'Amazing grace.' (p.9)
The oxygen masks come down, the plane banks so that all she can see through the window is the raw, bobbing ocean, and a man gets out his phone to ring his loved ones.
Next time, we'll fly in through Auckland!
It is Therese who narrates most of the novel, with what seems like disarming honesty. Her background is modest, and a makeover is part of the deal when she marries Trevor. Along with changing her name from Teresa to the more aspirational Therese, smartening up her vowels and her dress sense, she gets that wonky eyetooth straightened so that she could open her mouth when she smiled. These canines are what we used to tear our food, and this action is symbolic of the way she willingly submits to restraining any expression of anger. To enjoy this kind of good life, she has to fit in and make everything good and nice for everybody else.
Her forbearance is not the patience of a gentle personality; it is the price of the life she leads.
The cover of my edition of His Only Wife by Ghanaian author Peace Adzo Medie includes comments from Wayetu Moore that it's 'hilarious, a gem of a debuThe cover of my edition of His Only Wife by Ghanaian author Peace Adzo Medie includes comments from Wayetu Moore that it's 'hilarious, a gem of a debut' and from Kirkus Reviews that it's 'a Crazy Rich Asians for West Africa, with a healthy splash of feminism.' Cosmopolitan says it's 'a fierce and funny study of modern womanhood within Ghanaian culture'. I was in the mood for a book that was 'hilarious', but TBH while there were some droll moments, I finished His Only Wife feeling more saddened than amused. Here we are in the 21st century yet — if this book represents things as they are — then even in sophisticated modern cities in Ghana, women are still made miserable by African polygamous patriarchy, and senior women in extended families are complicit in perpetuating it.
The first part of the book shows Afi bewildered but dutiful. Her mother has agreed to Aunty's demand that Afi be stitched up in an arranged marriage which is intended to separate the groom from an existing relationship which doesn't meet with Aunty's approval. The power relationship here is an important element in the story: Aunty is wealthy and Afi's widowed mother is financially dependent on her. Her husband was over-generous to the extended family who then failed to help at all when he died and left his wife and daughter Afi penniless. Afi's arranged marriage is intended to restore their place in society and make them financially secure.
So Afi leaves her mother and her friends in Ho for life in the capital, Accra. Eli and his family have multiple properties, but Afi is marooned not in his house but in an apartment block. He doesn't come to see her for weeks, and gorgeous though the apartment is, once her mother goes home to Ho, Afi is lonely and anxious. Her mother's hopes and Aunty's expectations weigh heavily on her. It is her duty to make Eli happy so that he will eject Muna and the child Ivy so that she can move into what will be the marital home. As Eli's absence lengthens, Afi gets bored and wants to resume her career in dress design. Contrary to the blurb, she is not just a seamstress, she is a dress designer, with ambitions to open her own boutique. (Fashion is a Big Deal in Ghana.)
We like our heroines to be courageous, but we don't want them to be messy. So says Sisonke Msimang in this clear-eyed portrait of Winnie Mandela, who wWe like our heroines to be courageous, but we don't want them to be messy. So says Sisonke Msimang in this clear-eyed portrait of Winnie Mandela, who was fêted all over the world as the loyal wife of Nelson Mandela while the South African Apartheid regime treated her brutally, but was shunned worldwide when she became implicated in violence herself. This is the blurb:
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela charts the rise and fall—and rise, again—of one of South Africa’s most controversial political figures. ‘Ma Winnie’ fought apartheid with uncommon ferocity, but her implication in kidnapping, torture and killings—including the murder of 14-year-old Stompie Seipei—would later see her shunned.
Sisonke Msimang argues that this complicated woman was not witch but warrior: that her violence, like that of the men she fought alongside, was a function of her political views rather than a descent into madness. In resurrecting Ma Winnie, Msimang asks what it means to reclaim this powerful woman as an icon while honouring apartheid’s victims—those who were collateral damage and whose stories have yet to be told.
Feminism powers this book along, but The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela is more than a book about how female political leaders are perceived and treated differently to their male counterparts. It's also about the dilemmas faced by the leadership of any organisation fighting for political freedom. What strategies should be used, when non-violence has failed? What kind of violence can be justified in an unequal war? Can we reconcile the violent behaviour of freedom fighters, if they are activists in a just cause? And how do we respond if the violence gets out of hand because the participants have become brutalised and insensitive as a consequence of violence they've suffered themselves?
Most of us would prefer that strategies be non-violent, modelled on Gandhi's campaign in India. But Nelson Mandela—the man now hailed as a secular saint—co-founded MK:
MK wasn't just designated a terrorist organisation by South Africa, but also by the US. Oliver Tambo, another hero of the movement, was directly responsible for guerrilla actions which killed civilians:
Along with his comrades Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, and Walter Sisulu, Tambo directed and facilitated several attacks against the apartheid state. In a 1985 interview, Tambo was quoted as saying, "In the past, we were saying the ANC will not deliberately take innocent life. But now, looking at what is happening in South Africa, it is difficult to say civilians are not going to die."
To afficionados of the ABC current affairs program The Drum, Jane Caro’s Accidental Feminists is exactly what you might expect of the author: forthrigTo afficionados of the ABC current affairs program The Drum, Jane Caro’s Accidental Feminists is exactly what you might expect of the author: forthright, amusing, full of pithy anecdotes to illustrate a point, and witheringly authentic.
What was revolutionary about our generation was that the generation born in the 1950s and 1960s is the first in history where most of the women worked for wages for most of their lives. And because money is power, this has changed everything.
While (of course) not everyone accessed higher education, Caro acknowledges that the Whitlam government’s abolition of university fees was pivotal:
If tertiary education was free, it was harder to rationalise preventing girls from accompanying their brothers, especially as so many of us had higher marks. More than that, however, our mothers also began to grasp the chance that was offered to them. It was female mature-age students who radically swelled the ranks at universities during that tiny window of opportunity…(p.71)
However…
[women] tend to be concentrated in lower-status industries and at the lower end of the pay scale. Even more depressing is the fact that previously high-status, well-paid occupations tend to fall in both status and pay when they become female dominated. General medical practice, marketing and human resources (the latter of which once meant a board position) spring to mind. (p.72)
Caro attributes this to ‘flexibility’ — because (again backed up by her statistics) most women still do the ‘second shift’ i.e. the housework, the cooking, the childcare. Again there are also structural reasons like expensive child-care and high effective marginal tax-rates when moving from three to four days a week to full-time work due to the loss of family and child benefits. (p.75)
The take-home message of Accidental Feminists is this: there is a cohort of older women in dire financial straits because of structural and social impediments to financial independence that have affected their entire lives.
For a such a little book it has created quite a furore: it’s only 92 pages, of which four are endnotes. Greer has been vilified and mocked for it, whiFor a such a little book it has created quite a furore: it’s only 92 pages, of which four are endnotes. Greer has been vilified and mocked for it, which she must have known was going to happen, but she has always been courageous. She has been quoted as saying things which in the book are quotations from someone with whom she disagrees. She is condemned for writing words and having opinions and making statements that are nowhere to be found in the book. Greer seems to have a thick skin, but I wonder if she ever gets tired of the way her efforts to raise serious issues are treated in the media. And now she’s got social media to contend with as well. FWIW Greer is not, in this book, suggesting solutions. She is raising issues for discussion because non-consensual sex, with or without violence, is a very serious problem. Chapter one: ‘What is rape?’ shows that even defining what it is and what it isn’t, is contentious. Chapter two: ‘Creating confusion’ is an analysis of the ways in which sincere efforts at law reform since the 70s haven’t helped. Chapter three: ‘The conundrum of consent’ is a clear-eyed look at the intractable problem of proving lack of consent (he said/she said) in a court of law. Chapter four is called ‘Sex as a bloodsport’ and raises the problem of serial offenders in places like universities and how they get away with it. Chapter five, ‘Victim or exhibit’ suggests that the legal system itself makes things more difficult, but solutions are not easy to come by since the accused —like any other person accused of a crime—has civil rights. A woman who accuses a man of rape is not a plaintiff, still less a prosecutor. She is evidence. An exhibit. The whole process is a long, drawn out and horrendous ordeal for the woman, and so far, attempts at reform haven’t helped. The chapters ‘Joystick or weapon’ and ‘Healing the victim’ are the ones that have generated the most anger against Greer. I’ll just quote this bit:
As usual we are confronted by unanswerable questions. Most rape is not accompanied by physical injury or carried out by men unknown to the victim, nor is it followed by flashbacks or is it ever identified as a crime. In the case of a woman who chooses to report the event, we have no idea how much of her distress is caused by the work-up itself, by the compilation of the forensic evidence, by her having to tell her story over and over and in public and then to defend it both in the committal stage and later in the courtroom. The most catastrophic shock must surely come when, as far too often happens, the jury does not convict. Nothing in the literature of PTSD after rape deals with these experiences. For all the intellectual effort and energy that has gone into getting the law of rape to make sense, conviction rates are falling. Meanwhile the true extent of non-consensual sex remains unimaginable. (p.62)
A reader needs to be a bit patient with this novel, the eighth from the prolific Kylie Tennant (1912-1988) but not IMO in the same league as the more A reader needs to be a bit patient with this novel, the eighth from the prolific Kylie Tennant (1912-1988) but not IMO in the same league as the more well-known The Battlers (1941) and Ride on Stranger (1943). The first part of the book is taken up with explaining more than most of us want to know about the mechanics of bee-keeping by itinerant apiarists out in the Australian bush.
But once that’s out of the way, the novel settles down to what Tennant does best: quirky characters and a central female character who doesn’t fit the mould. Mallee, so named because that’s where she was born, is a tetchy loner who yearns to be a writer but instead has to keep the family afloat by writing drivel for a radio serial (not unlike Blue Hills, by the sound of it). And she wants to be a ‘boss’ bee-keeper among the entirely male company of migratory bee-keepers who travel about following the moving feast of blossom of the great eucalypt forests. She drives a truck called The Roaring Ruin, and for preference she sleeps on the ground in a sleeping bag, despite the protests of the occasional women she meets, who offer her a bed and a bath—and symbolically, a return to a ‘normal’ woman’s life.
Tennant was known for the authenticity of her writing. As Wikipedia says:
Her work was known for its well-researched, realistic, yet positive portrayals of the lives of the underprivileged in Australia. In a video interview filmed in 1986, three years before her death for the Australia Council’s Archival Film Series, Tennant told how she lived as the people she wrote about, travelling as an unemployed itinerant worker during the Depression years, living in Aboriginal communities and spending a short time in prison for research. (Wikipedia, viewed 3/11/18)
It’s common practice now to research for a book online, but IMO nothing replaces being there in order to write prose like this:
Of course when we settled down to extract, we fell naturally into two opposing parties, me and Joe in the extracting house, and Big Mike and Blaze out in the yard, working against each other for dear life. Having Big Mike instead of Mongo must have been sheer delight to Blaze, for Mike was a man who could work as smoothly and as well as he did, a man who never dropped the super on his hands as Mongo did, or trod on bees, or fell over Blaze’s feet. They shared their own jokes and catchwords and they kidded Joe to death. But the honey was coming off, and we were doing better than three tins to the hive, so the feeling of exultation and the pace of the work carried us headlong over any slight discords. Besides, it was that gentle weather, with a bloom on it like a grape, the stillness of perfection when the year surveys its handiwork. We would drive out in the morning with the dew or the tender vapours of mist, and eat at noon in some sun-warmed hollow of old gold-diggings, with a screaming, plunging surf of bees about us and the smell of wild roses in the short grass the sheep had nibbled. Long after dark, tired and dirty, we would come home, singing, to eat steak and boil our overalls. (p. 141)
Tennant was never a city girl at heart. Her characters are working in the area about to be dammed by the Snowy Mountain Hydro and the engineer Lee Stollin is proud of it as a symbol of Australian progress. But Mallee isn’t impressed:
But what kind of country was he making self-supporting? A country where three-quarters of the people—more than three-quarters—lived in cities and worked in offices and factories, filling up sheets of paper or transporting other workers to their various jobs. What a life! (p. 119)
Mary Lee, Denise George’s biography of a ‘turbulent anarchist’ and her battle for women’s rights is a perfect companion to Clare Wright’s recently pubMary Lee, Denise George’s biography of a ‘turbulent anarchist’ and her battle for women’s rights is a perfect companion to Clare Wright’s recently published You Daughters of Freedom (which I reviewed here). That’s because Wright’s book about the struggle for women’s suffrage in Australia and beyond – comprehensive though it is – pays scant attention to the event that started it all in Australia: the achievement of the women’s vote in South Australia in 1894. Had it not been for women’s suffrage in South Australia, those ‘founding fathers’ would not have had to negotiate women’s suffrage in the new rules for voting in the very first federal election. As Wright makes very clear, the South Australians were ready to derail federation altogether if their women were not allowed to vote, and it was inconceivable that women in some states could vote and others could not. The parliament was snookered, and so women got the vote!
Yet the South Australian story of women’s suffrage is barely known. Denise George deserves all credit for unearthing the story from obscurity, because as the blurb tells us, Lee’s journals and most of her letters, along with a dearth of recorded women’s history, kept her contribution hidden for more than 125 years. Mary Lee is a woman whose statue should not only be among the gentlemen of the South Australian parliament, she should be prominently acknowledged in our national parliament as well. (I will be delighted if someone who lives in Canberra inspects the building to see if she is).
Mary Lee, suffragist and social advocate, really was an amazing woman. She was nearly sixty when she and her daughter Evelyn landed in Australia to look after her gravely ill son Benjamin, and after he died she threw herself into battle to improve the lives of women.
The list of causes she took on is impressive – everything from raising the age of consent to sixteen (from— can you believe it? ten years old in 1875) to ending capital punishment, but it was her extraordinary determination to achieve votes for women that is her most important achievement.
The amazing thing about reading Clare Wright’s You Daughters of Freedom is the switch from reading the wholly unfamiliar story of Australia’s history The amazing thing about reading Clare Wright’s You Daughters of Freedom is the switch from reading the wholly unfamiliar story of Australia’s history of suffrage to the familiar story of English suffragettes in Part III. How has this happened? How come we all know the story of the English suffragettes, but we don’t know about the Australian women (and men) who led the world into modern democracy with votes for women?? Well IMO there are two answers to that and only one of them is that until comparatively recently Australian history took a back seat to British history in the school curriculum. The other reason is that the mayhem and violence of the British suffragette campaign makes a more dramatic story than the story of the Australians who achieved votes for women with principles and logic and strategic nous. Hopefully You Daughters of Freedom will put the tabloid version in its place.
What will help with that, is Clare Wright’s pop-hist-doco style. This history is written with an eye to a young audience. She uses metaphors with jaunty panache, describing, for example, the 1902 Federal Parliamentary debate about who would qualify to vote as
like a game of citizenship Kerplunk: pulling out democratic planks and watching which marbles might fall through the gaps. (p.117)
Senator Pulsford, in the same debate, thought that WA and SA might in their wisdom consider it to drop woman suffrage (which SA had granted in 1894, and WA in 1899). This female franchise was causing trouble because SA was threatening to derail federation if their women were to lose it. Human rights had to be uniform across the nation, but the Parliament could hardly legislate that the enfranchised women of SA and WA could vote in the forthcoming first federal election, but not their sisters in the other states. So yes, as Clare Wright says, the senator was dreaming.
Much later, when the indomitable Australian women were over in England helping Englishwomen with their struggle to achieve the vote, Wright uses a pop term to describe the strategic savviness of the Australians:
The intransigence of the Liberal government had provided fertile ground for activism. Soon there was the Actresses’ Franchise League, with Cicely Hamilton at the helm, and the Writers’ Suffrage League. The WSPU [Women’s Social and Political Union] said that what was needed to wake up the nation was propaganda. Information and posters and badges, banners and essay and plays. A speech was one thing, and lord knows the suffrage leaders had made hundreds of those. But something to hold in your hand, or wear at your breast was another. They needed merch. (p.215)
Slavenka Drakulić is a notable Croatian journalist, novelist, and essayist whose first novel S. (also known as As If I Am Not There) has the rare distSlavenka Drakulić is a notable Croatian journalist, novelist, and essayist whose first novel S. (also known as As If I Am Not There) has the rare distinction of being a work of translated fiction by a woman that's included in 1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die. Goodreads tells me that she has been recognised as one of the most influential European writers of our time. She writes both fiction and non-fiction, exploring political and ideological issues of the communist and post-communist era, war crimes and the female body. Having now read her fifth novel, a fictionalised study of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, I would suggest that she's also interested in forms of courage and endurance that we might not always recognise. Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a well-known self-taught Mexican artist: [She] painted many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and Indigenous traditions, and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. (Wikipedia, viewed 7/3/18, edited to remove hyperlinks). Drakulić, however, explores the relationship between Kahlo's physical suffering and her art. Kahlo was disabled by childhood polio and then by an horrific accident when she was a teenager. She endured numerous operations and suffered constant pain throughout her life - but in this novel she is shown to have transcended the limitations of her body through courage and endurance that is more commonly ascribed to men.
Finishing off another half-started book, this time it is a ‘handbag’ book that’s been stashed away for months — a gentle reminder that in this most reFinishing off another half-started book, this time it is a ‘handbag’ book that’s been stashed away for months — a gentle reminder that in this most remarkable year I have got out of the habit of needing a book to read while waiting for trains, health professionals, hairdressers and friends in coffee shops. I haven’t even needed a handbag…
This classic of Senegalese literature is a perfect ‘handbag’ book because it’s a slim 96 pages, one of which is a glossary. There is an Introduction too, by Kenneth Harrow of Michigan, who tells me that this is one of the first novels by a Senegalese woman in French and that it became a foundational text for Francophone women writers. This is his summary of the novella:
Written as a semi-autobiographical account, its protagonist Ramatoulaye is a woman who came of age during the period of late colonialism, married a Senegalese nationalist and gave birth to twelve children as their country passed into independence. She faced her husband’s rejection and then his death as the country experienced the passage from colony to modern nation. (p.i)
So much for the big picture. Written as a letter to her dearest friend Aissatou (who is confusingly addressed as ‘sister’), Ramatoulaye’s letter is a cry of anguish. This husband who broke her heart by exercising a right to polygamy which is out of step in a modern nation, has just died, and though this should free her to make a new life for herself, she mourns him still. During the mourning period of forty days, Ramatoulaye revisits the anguish of her marriage ending. To add insult to injury, his choice was Binetou, the best friend of her daughter Daba, who was outraged by his decision and implored her mother to divorce him.
I have no doubt that there would be many knee-jerk reactions to this book, and I read it expecting to disagree with everything it said because as the I have no doubt that there would be many knee-jerk reactions to this book, and I read it expecting to disagree with everything it said because as the mother of a young child at that time in the 1970s, I loved motherhood even though it was one of the busiest times of my life. However, the incredible incidence of post-natal depression hints that motherhood is not, for many women, the wondrous experience that they were expecting, and maybe a book like this might make some people stop and think before having a family that they're perhaps not suited to have. The book also needs to be considered in the context of its era. Western societies were emerging from the postwar barefoot-and-pregnant, back-to-the-kitchen era, but there was still enormous pressure on young couples to have children. The Pill was still newish, but some women who'd been on it for a good few years were under pressure from their parents. Whereas now in the 21st century there's nothing unusual about women choosing not to marry or choosing not to have children, back then in the 1970s women resisting motherhood were on their own, so a book like The Motherhood Myth was revelatory and revolutionary. ...more
It’s not until late in the book that one realises the significance of the sub-title to this amusing piece of 18th century literature. Readers of the pIt’s not until late in the book that one realises the significance of the sub-title to this amusing piece of 18th century literature. Readers of the period would have been alert to the word ‘adventure’ in The Female Quixote, or The Adventures of Arabella because, as the Countess gravely explains to Arabella in Book 8, ideas change, and what was proper in a bygone age, may be scandalous in the present. (And vice versa, in the 21st century). For poor foolish Arabella, whose head has been turned by the imprudent reading of French romances, the idea of adventure is captivating, and she longs to be rescued from imminent peril by any number of heroic gentlemen. Alas, for Arabella, the greatest peril she faces is the loss of her reputation because the adventures that she orchestrates can only bring scandal…
Custom, said the Countess smiling, changes the very Nature of Things, and what was honourable a thousand Years ago, may probably be look’d upon as infamous now — A Lady in the heroic Age you speak of, would not be thought to possess any great Share of Merit, if she had not been many times carried away by one or other of her insolent Lovers: Whereas a Beauty in this could not pass thro’ the Hands of several different Ravishers, without bringing an Imputation on her Chastity. (Bk 8).
The Female Quixote, GirleBooksThe book is, of course, a spoof, a reworking of Cervantes’ famous Don Quixote, which pokes fun at the chivalric tradition through Quixote’s obsession with Rescuing Fair Maidens and Performing Other Heroic Deeds. Lennox’s heroine, being only a girl, cannot ride off on any Rocinante to tilt at windmills – the adventures must come to her, and so indeed they do. Hapless servants and passers-by are interpreted as Noble Suitors in Disguise, scandalously using the role of underlings to get close enough to pay their addresses. These must be banished from her sight, because no True Man Who Loves Her could possibly do so without Pining in Desolation in a cave, Slaughtering Rivals with the Sword, Dying by Their Own Forlorn Hand or Wasting Away until She Whom They Love with Unreserved Passion Commands Otherwise. Then there are Others of more Nefarious Intent who lurk in her gardens purporting to be haymakers and from these would-be Ravishers, she must be rescued. After she has Swooned, of course
Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater is a brilliant book, and I am not surprised to find from GoodReads that it has been reissued as a classic by NYRPenelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater is a brilliant book, and I am not surprised to find from GoodReads that it has been reissued as a classic by NYRB. (The copy up here is a well-loved Penguin from 1979.) Published in 1962, The Pumpkin-Eater pre-dates all the feminist writing that was so exhilarating to read as the sixties progressed, but I knew Mortimer’s name because I’ve read something of hers before. (Daddy’s Gone A-hunting, I think, but it’s too long ago to be sure).
For those who have forgotten their nursery rhymes, (or sadly never knew any) the title derives from this rhyme:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater Had a wife and couldn’t keep her He put her in a pumpkin shell And there he kept her very well.
(*shudder* When you think how ancient this rhyme is, it is quite horrible to think how it reflects confining women’s lives over the centuries).
Mortimer’s novel begins with an unnamed wife in a psychiatrist’s chair and the black humour is evident from the start. He is the classic patronising male of the sixties (and if you think you know this type now, trust me, you have no idea what they were like when their power was unbridled and our courage was prudently tentative).
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