sunshowerdandelion | 05.10.2025 (2): Monkey Lock

I don't think I liked this one as much as Helen Garner's other works. There is the faint plot spine of Nora loving Javo, and how that ends up, but it ends multiple times and oscillates back and forth and doesn't stop. I understand that that's verisimilitude and very autobiographical, but I wish the author had established a better frame to all the events: who the people are, what the conditions are like, etc. As it stands the reader is chucked into the deep end of the pool: characters flit back and forth and are introduced without fanfare, disappear, and reappear to do absolutely strange things, or be in the background somewhere. I understand that transience is meant to be evoked here, but gosh, I had so much trouble following the comings and goings of the characters.

Also there are children and I can't keep track of them and I got worried about them.

But the prose shines. There's a deep, deep truth in that life is a lot of people marching back and forth inside your house, people you can't really remember the names of. I've never had the experience of addiction, but I have been in a strange relationship, and the repetitive stress of love/hate is very familiar. Some parts of Nora's hunger I failed to understand however, especially her raging jealousy, and her flippant attitude towards her child(ren?) Things happen inexplicably in life.

Also I wished the author had gone deeper into the alternative living setup Nora and the others had going on. It seemed really cool but gosh, also really exhausting.