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Book Reviews
Yet something seems very right to me about going mad in a supermarket,” writes New Yorker Hilma Wolitzer: “those painted oranges, threatening to burst at the navel; formations of cans, armoured with labels and prices and weights; cuts of meat, aggressively bloody; and crafty peaches and apples, showing only their glowing perfect faces, hiding the rot and soft spots on their undersides.” This titular short story, first published in 1966 and now collected in Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, is every bit as ripe and fresh as those crafty supermarket fruits pretend to be.
As is the rest of the collection, with its telling cover of a waxy lemon, zest peeled back in the formation of a hand grenade. What Wolitzer does so well is detonate ordinary pockets of everyday domestic life – a trip to the shops, a weekend drive with the family, apartment living with nosy neighbours – exposing the raw nerves, the hilarities, the grief and rage and strangeness that simmers just below the surface.
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Wolitzer – the mother of New York Times-bestselling author Meg – is now 91, and this collection showcases her garrulous, witty voice, her compassion and heaving life force. The collection’s closing tale, ‘The Great Escape’, is inspired by Wolitzer and her husband Morty’s COVID battle in 2020, a battle that tragically, Morty did not win. Impossibly, Wolitzer’s wry humour still shines through: “It’s still going on – I mean the pandemic and all the rest of life.” I hope she lives forever. MF
I DIDN’T DO THE THING TODAY MADELEINE DORE
It’s notable that even during the pandemic, while telling ourselves to value reprieve and to slow down, many of us escalated our endeavours to increase productivity. Here Madeleine Dore invites us to do and be less, to release ourselves from the pressures of over-commitment. Dore, writer and selfprofessed conductor of “life experiments”, weaves her own reflections with those of varied subjects she has interviewed since 2014, including the likes of social researcher and author Hugh Mackay, and author, engineer and activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied. In relatable and reassuring prose, Dore contends that the messy imperfections of being human should not be overcome or even just tolerated, but embraced. Not so much instructive, but more a wondering-outloud philosophy for living, Dore pedestals the nuances of humanness and the joys we cannot measure, while ruminating on envy, success, routine and guilt. Dore invites us to explore a creative mindset where we contemplate and value what will fill, rather than diminish, our everyday. DASHA MAIOROVA
OLGA DIES DREAMING XOCHITL GONZALEZ
At first glance this debut – which explores the lives of high-profile New York wedding planner Olga Acevedo and her Congressman brother Prieto as they grapple with their Puerto Rican roots in the wake of Hurricane Maria – appears to simply be a novel about the woes of the diaspora in the United States. But Gonzalez is far more ambitious than that. The plot keeps excellent pace and readers will find themselves gripped by the endless sketchy situations in which Olga and Prieto find themselves, the dynamics of the Acevedo family, and the political and social landscape that defines their lives. It is a rare feat to effectively pair engaging storytelling with skewering takes on capitalism, politics, racism and identity, and yet Gonzalez walks the line brilliantly. At times it felt like there were too many characters and intersecting storylines at the expense of genuine character development, but this is a small complaint about an otherwise stunning novel, which explores contemporary issues with depth and emotion. SARAH MOHAMMED
THE FURIES MANDY BEAUMONT
About to turn 17, Cynthia is working at an abattoir and nursing an unwanted pregnancy in smalltown Queensland in 1999. Just a year before, her family dissolved with a single act stemming from her mother’s mental illness. Mandy Beaumont’s debut novel takes inspiration from the avenging female spirits of classic mythology to tell a harrowing tale about how routinely men can abuse women. The book’s first third is especially brutal, as Cynthia hurls herself into fresh trauma to blunt her recent tragedy. But the second third sheds valuable light on her mum’s perspective, and the final third sees Cynthia begin to stand up for herself at work and beyond. Evoking a ghostly chorus of “all the women who’ve come before” that first disturbs and then empowers her heroine, Beaumont makes us aware of the dangers faced by women every day. The setting may be the rural Australia of two decades ago, but the themes – and stakes – are painfully universal. DOUG WALLEN
