Mary Lord (1929–2008)

I haven't actually read all of the stories yet: I've read the ones that correspond to a list of Australian Women Writers tagged Gen 4: women who began writing in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Because what is really good about this collection under the editorship of Mary Lord is, as she says in the Introduction:

...not another arrangement of regularly anthologised evergreens, but a collection that introduces readers to less well-known but still first-rate stories by outstanding writers, and to the work of some others not so well known whose writing has been overlooked or neglected. (p.1)

So there are some interesting rarities in the Table of Contents, which I reproduce on the blog in case anyone is searching for those that are less well-known. But in terms of Bill's list of AWW4 writers, disappointingly there were none who were new to me in the collection. So for the purposes of this post, I just read authors he'd listed.

I began with Elizabeth Jolley's 'A Gentleman's Agreement' published in 1976. The twist in the tail made me laugh, as Jolley's wicked sense of humour so often does. Narrated by an adolescent daughter, it's about a humble family (fatherless, with no explanation as to why or how), whose mother makes a living by charring. She likes to give the poor people from down her street a bit of pleasure, so when the owners are absent from their luxury apartments, she lets the poor neighbours in to have wedding receptions and parties in the penthouse.

This does, of course, cause extra work for her, and it adds to her responsibility to keep an eye on her father's derelict farm. It was the kind of place where nothing grew except weeds but it couldn't be sold because Grandpa was still alive in a Home for the Aged, and he wanted to keep the farm though he couldn't do anything with it. But the time comes when it can be sold, and Mother takes the children there to get it ready for sale. The ne'er-do-well brother takes to farm life immediately.

It seemed there was nothing my brother couldn't do. Suddenly after doing nothing in his life he was driving the tractor and making fire breaks, he started to paint the sheds and he told Mother what fencing posts and wire to order. All these things had to be done before the sale could go through. I kept wishing we could live in the house, all at once it seemed lovely there at the top of the sunlit meadow. But I knew that however many acres you have they aren't any use unless you have money too. I think we were all thinking this but no one said anything thought Mother kept looking at my brother and the change in him. (p.247)

Well, the sale goes through, but there is a happy ending for this family of battlers after all. The irony of the title is a gendered joke in a story featuring a strong independent and wily woman. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find which of Jolley's short story collections includes this title, so if anyone finds it, please let me know.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/01/20/the-penguin-best-australian-short-stories-ed...… (meer)