Madeleine St. John (1) (1941–2006)

I went in thinking this was going to be a bunch of women being catty to each other, and/or a funny-but-mournful study of how oppressive women's lives were—kind of a mid-century Aussie Dawn Powell. But it was actually none of that. Rather, it was sweet and funny and quite charming, lightweight but not dumb. And just the thing to read after four fairly serious nonfiction books in a row. This was unexpected (I can't even remember where I got the recommendation) and fun.

The titular Women in Black (Patty, Fay, Magda, and Lisa) work in the cocktail dress section of a department store in Sydney, Australia, in the 1950s. Patty longs for children with her taciturn husband; Fay longs for a man who will marry her; and Lisa longs to grow up. Magda, a Slovenian immigrant married to Hungarian Stefan, is content, and secure enough to help Lisa on her way to adulthood, and Fay on her way to marriage.

Quotes

...she was tired of the whole futile merry-go-round. And what show more was worse than this, much, much worse, was that there was no other merry-go-round she could step onto; it was this one to which she was apparently condemned, whether she liked it or not, and now she did not, and there was not a damned thing she could do about it. (Fay, 42)

"If you only knew what being a grown-up can be like, you wouldn't want to do it any faster than you have to." (Lisa/Lesley's mom, 99)

"I'll tell you this. No one understands men. We don't understand them, and they don't understand themselves." (Patty's mom, 105)

"Things are not all for the best, in the best of all possible worlds, as we know, but I think on the whole that a modicum of happiness is occasionally possible for the luckiest of us." (Stefan at New Year's, 131)

She didn't want to have to pretend anything: when you're alone, you needn't pretend, need you? Although, of course, sometimes you do: sometimes the lies you tell yourself are worse than the ones you tell other people. Now how can that be? (Patty, 156) show less

A Facebook friend recommended this, saying that if you liked Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, you’ll like this. Since I liked that book very much, I got it from the library. Blurbs by two writers I like a lot, Hilary Mantel and Jane Gardam, were encouraging. I liked it a lot. It’s about a group of women who work in a big department store in Sydney. The main character is Lisa (dropping her original name, Lesley, for the first time) who’s waiting for her exam results and has taken her show more first job. She’d like to go to university but her father is against it; she and her mother are in cahoots to get around him. At the store she meets the sophisticated Magda, a former displaced person who sells the highest priced gowns. Another saleswoman, Fay, is also taken into Magda’s circle with charming results. A third saleswoman’s joyless marriage undergoes a change. Everything ends in a perfect and believable way.
It’s written in a dry, subtle style with little funny touches. I soon realized I need my own copy and ordered some other novels by St. John. show less

A brief, easy-to-read book that is brilliant in containing so much within its 200 pages. The story focuses on several women of varying ages who all work in a large department store selling women's frocks during the Christmas-time sales in Sydney, Australia. These are the "women in black" as the saleswomen must wear a black dress provided by the store. With wit and subtle humor, the author cleverly portrays the women in their various life stages from young and innocent high school graduate show more just working temporarily, to twenties girls on the hunt for husbands, to a middle-aged married cosmopolitan émigré from Serbia. What makes this book successful is how the author effortlessly portrays the longings, the hopes, and fears of these women with spare and sparkling prose that captures various personalities, humor, and intelligence. Additionally, the male characters are also rendered as individual personalities. This is an upbeat, satisfying novel that I recommend when you're looking for something clever and entertaining. show less