Elizabeth Jolley (1923–2007)

I read this as part of a well-taught class through Arlington (MA) Community Ed and never would have chosen it myself. Over six weeks, we learned about the author's technique of maintaining duplicity and ambiguity to keep lively what could have been a routine story of expats in Australia. Edwin, a literature professor, and Cecelia, his OBGYN wife, seem to have little commonality in their marriage, and when new next door neighbors, a mother and her nubile daughter, get locked out of their show more house, Edwin steps up. Cecelia is on a years-long research trip, during which Edwin intended to spend being cared for by their couple friends (and attend "key parties"), but Leila and her mother move in and seduce him with cooking and feigned attraction and helplessness. There's the vast complication of a pregnancy, Edwin's disinterest in his absent wife, and one truly good friend to him, Daphne, whose character shines out from the scheming others. The shocks and surprises slide in sideways, and there's much to discuss and decipher. show less

Originally published individually, The Vera Wright Trilogy is Persea Books' compilation of celebrated Australian author Elizabeth Jolley's three autobiographical novels My Father's Moon, Cabin Fever, and The Georges' Wife. Vera Wright is a complex character. She wants love and to belong somewhere but never seems to find her place. She is easily taken in by captivating people that wander into and out of her life, people who have the passion and charisma that Vera always seems to find lacking show more in herself. She bounces from friend to friend and one romantic entanglement to another as she tries to define herself and carve out a place to belong.

The trilogy follows Vera as she leaves school to become a nurse during World War II, as she bears a doctor's illegitimate child, as she falls in love with both men and women who are forbidden to her. All three stories are told through a haze of memory as if events and people are being plucked from her subconscious and replayed and reconsidered from a distance. The result is a genuine and compelling, if occasionally circuitous, narrative. The lack of a straightforward chronology and an occasional repetitiveness can be confusing, but ultimately, it all works together to create a tone that encompasses the reflective nature of the book.

We are taken along for the ride as Vera examines herself from beyond the immediacy of her life's mistakes and all those events that she can't quite decide were mistakes at all. Jolley's story told through Vera's eyes is spare, crisp, and wise, and The Vera Wright Chronicles reads like a classic opening a window on the life of a woman trying to find her place in England and in Australia during and after World War II.

At more than 500 pages, The Vera Wright Trilogy is a work that requires some patience and perhaps more attentiveness than I've been accustomed to giving books lately. That said, it's a beautiful character study. The uniting of all three works into one volume does great things for the consistent development of this intriguing character. Vera is a character that despite her many flaws and poor decisions, I could relate to on an almost visceral level, and a character that we come to know deeply by the end of the trilogy. Despite her attention to Vera, Jolley never gives her many supporting characters the short shrift, rather she draws clear and penetrating portraits of each of them and gives us reason to see why, however bad they might be for her, Vera can't help but be attracted to them, and have the course of her life altered by them.

The Vera Wright Trilogy is a rich and layered reading experience. It's a brilliant study of character and memory. It's a book to let yourself get lost in. show less

This is one of the most peculiar books I've read in a long time...but it's absolutely brilliant. Halfway through I ordered more of her books... Puts me slightly in mind of Beryl Bainbridge.
Written in the third person, but told entirely from the perspective of old-for-his-age academic Edwin, the other characters remain somewhat unknowable. There's his younger wife- gynecologist Cecilia, who's off on a year-long posting to Canada. We never actually "meet" the wife...she crops up in phone show more conversations, and in Edwin's musings. Her ready laugh, the "swinging" scene, to which she has introduced the ..we sense unwilling...Edwin... And is there more than just comradeship with her fellow obstetrician, Frau Doktor Vorwickl?

To Edwin's door come locked-out neighbors, the uneducated and rather vulgar Mrs Bott and her plain, hefty yet grateful, undemanding and childlike daughter Leila. Once in, they soon take up residence....mother's cooking and daughter's fleshy charms work their way...gradually...into Edwin's heart. But meanwhile neighbour Daphne (friend to both Edwin and Cecelia) , not to mention the people from the swinging club, are prowling about. And Cecelia phones home, and will be back after a year..

It's both incredibly well-observed and funny, while - even in such surreal scenarios - confronting deeper questions about one's needs and desires. show less

My second read by the wonderful Ms Jolley- and, as expected, it's weird, hilarious and unputdownable.
Miss Peabody is a sad old London spinster, her life devoted to a job in an office and caring for a sick mother. One day she writes to the Australian author of a novel she just enjoyed...and receives a reply.
The enthusiastic letters from the other side of the world include instalments of a story- an Australian boarding school headmistress, a couple of lesbian colleagues- one as much of a wet show more weekend as Miss Peabody- and a couple of the "gels" embark on a European tour
As the group hit London, Miss Peabody is so caught up in the story that she looks for them in the crowd...
Quite fabulous. show less