The Women In Black

The Women In Black

Synopsis

Sydney in the 1950s. On the second floor of the famous F.G. Goode department store, in Ladies' Cocktail Frocks, the women in black are girding themselves for the Christmas rush. Among the staff - Patty Williams with her wayward husband Frank, the sweet but unlucky Fay, faithful Mrs Jacob of the measuring tape - is Lisa, the new sales assistant (temporary), who is waiting for the results of her Leaving Certificate. Across the floor and beyond the arch, Lisa will meet the glamorous Continental refugee, Magda, guardian of the rose-pink cave of model gowns. With the lightest touch and the most tender of comic instincts, Madeleine St John conjures a vanished summer of innocence.

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• fifties feelgood

  Reviewed by Marianne V. | see all reviews by Marianne V.

  02/02/2011

  The Women in Black is first of only four published novels by Madeleine St John. This edition includes a perceptive introduction by her contemporary, Bruce Beresford, and an obituary by Christopher Potter. Under the guise of a story about the staff of the Ladies Cocktail section at F.G. Goodes (the Women in Black), St John takes us back to Sydney in the late 1950s. St John manages, with very few words, to bring back the feel of those times, the ideas and attitudes, in full living colour. Nostalgia overtakes the reader at the mention of prices in guineas, frocks (as opposed to dresses), men and women in hats, shops closing at 5.30, local calls for four pennies, the school Intermediate and Leaving certificate results posted at the newspaper officesthe list goes on. With mention of reffos and continentals, and salami as a novel food, Sydney of the late 50s is perfectly depicted. The dialogue is so authentic, it has the reader alternately laughing out loud and cringing (dont say anythink). St Johns characters are convincing and easy to love. It was such fun to be a fly on the wall at F.G.Goodes (which was fairly obviously David Jones) and how lovely to realise that those formidable Women in Black were real people with the same insecurities as the rest of us!
  The Women in Black has been aptly described as an Australian Classic. It truly was a delight to read!
  
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