We’ve all known a couple that breaks up and gets back together over and over again. As teenagers, that sort of relationship drama seems to be part of the adolescent experience, but once you’re in your twenties and thirties the debriefings and speculation over what has been said and done wears thin.
Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip unpicks the relationship between Nora and Javo. It’s predominantly a story of addiction – Javo has a drug habit and Nora has a ‘Javo-habit’. As frequently as Javo says he is giving up drugs, Nora says she’s done with Javo. Neither stop and that is essentially the beginning and end of the story.
I was comforted by Javo’s gentleness; but I knew the gentleness of the departing to the one left behind. Still plenty of hard times coming.
The story is told from Nora’s perspective as she manages her six-year-old daughter, Gracie; their life in various share-houses; and her intimate relationships.
He was twenty-three then and maybe, I ignorantly surmised, wouldn’t get much older, because of the junk and dangerous idleness in the bloodstream. I hadn’t reckoned with the grit, nor with what would be required of me, nor with what readiness I would give it… People like Javo need people like me, steadier, to circle round for a while; and from my centre, held there by children’s needs, I stare longingly outwards at his rootlessness.
The story made me anxious from the beginning – the carelessness of the main characters was relentless (I guess there’s great writing skill in that…). I didn’t ‘like’ any of it and the parentification of the children in the share house and Nora’s flawed logic when it came to relationships made for exhausting reading.
I generally enjoy Garner’s pared back sentences but in this instance, the dialogue was straightforward to the point of being stilted. And to say that there was an overuse of the word ‘fuck’ is an understatement (my Kindle indicates that it is used 117 times in 245 pages).
‘Oh, somebody told me you’d been fucking with him lately.’
‘But I haven’t! Last night was the first time. Who told you that?’
‘Oh, I dunno. Someone.’ He took my hand. I sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘But I would always tell you if I fucked with anyone else!’
The detail about Melbourne kept me reading. Places I know well – Carlton, Collingwood, and inner suburban public pools – are described so accurately that I wondered if anything had changed since Garner wrote the book in 1977. A place where I walk regularly gets a mention –
I got on my bike and rode off through Kew Junction, up the hill, along past the gardens of Raheen and the Catholic properties and the pine-scented dry ground of the edge of the golf course, over the hump to where Studley Park Road opened out in front of me: half a mile of steady, inexorable downhill run…. Down and round the wide metal curve, over the river almost invisible among humped trees, on my left the convent low down on its mediaeval banks, ancient trees shadowing its courts; and on to Johnston Street, slowing down from fight and back to legwork along the narrow road between the rows of closed factories.
And equally, there’s beauty in Garner’s simple descriptions. Of Gracie and another kid asleep, she writes that Nora finds them ‘…cast across the bed in attitudes of struggle and flight’. But these lovely slips of sentences were not enough to sustain me through the relationship angst, the drug paraphernalia, and the idle days.
2.5/5 I love Helen but will stick to her narrative nonfiction in the future.
In the night plane between Melbourne and Hobart, speed, grass and brandy alexanders combined to produce a thick layer of paranoia through which all impressions of the world outside myself had to force their way.
I first read Monkey Grip as a young man, and have always loved its descriptions of share house life, inner suburban Melbourne and yes, the Fitzroy baths. Still my favourite Garner.
I started reading your review all primed to add this one to my list after revisiting The Spare Room last year and being just as impressed the second time around. At least it was short!
No, not for me. I’m just not interested in stories about addiction.
I definitely would not have the patience for this one! It sounds really well written but as you say, those situations start to wear thin once we hit our 20s.
I’ve been trying to plough my way through another novel which has an even higher instance of the F word. Very tiresome
I find the swearing exhausting as well, which is why I love pre-20th Century literature so much more than the modern…
‘ I love Helen but will stick to her narrative nonfiction in the future.‘
That’s exactly how I felt after attempting her diary Yellow Notebook. Now I know to steer clear of this too. Thank you.
I wrote a carefully expressed response and then the internet failed. Suffice it to say that as a Garner lover – novels, narrative fiction, short stories, essays – nothing you’ve written here has put me off getting around to reading this book one day. I’m ashamed I haven’t already!
If you haven’t already read it (it’s now 2025), I think you won’t be sorry.
Also, ABC iView has the film adaptation at the moment, with Noni Hazlehurst as the narrator/lead, and Helen Garner’s daughter as her daughter.
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This review needs a little, but very important, edit.
You state that Monkey Grip was written in 1984, but it was published in 1977. The film adaptation was only in 1982.
I think it’s a book of its era, and you may be coming to it too late to even get it. I grew up in Brisbane, and didn’t even know any junkies, but I did know alcoholics, and struggled with these same dramas of codependence, which didn’t even have a name back then.
So much has changed since the 70s and 80s –some for the better, some not so much. I just rewatched the film, and felt tense and sick throughout, but that doesn’t make the writing bad –that’s what makes it powerful. To get a physical reaction from your readers, or viewers, or listeners, is the best thing any artist can ask for.
A book must be rated on its writing, even if you feel uncomfortable with the subject matter. I give it 5/5.
As to the film adaptation… the members of the Divinyls, who were such a great presence in the film, all had their own dramas and addictions. Chrissy passed away in 2013, and the whole music scene has changed.
Thank you, I will adjust the publication date (I think my copy must have been from 1984…). And I have seen the film, although it was some time ago, so may be due for a re-watch.
I state that having the reader feel anxious or sick throughout is a sign of skilled writing not bad writing. I was not uncomfortable with the subject matter (actually quite the opposite), and nor do I have to ‘like’ characters in order to enjoy a book – I was simply not engaged in the way that I have been with her other books, and that’s what my rating was based on.
Thanks for explaining, Kate, and for correcting the date.
We studied Joe Cinque at uni, and I think I felt less engaged with that book than with Monkey Grip. Although I felt frustrated with Nora (extremely), I could also see her enmeshment for what it was.
If you want to re-watch, ABC iView are streaming it at the moment, along with some other 70s and 80s Aussie movies (all a product of their day –some good, some not so good…)
Oh, also, in my comment on your post, I wasn’t saying that you said or did any of the things you’re defending; I was simply saying how *I* felt, and what my own thoughts and feelings were, along with my own rating.
I did read your post properly, and saw that you never said it was bad writing, etc… A lot of people do, however, think that if they have a reaction, it must be the fault of the artist, and not that it’s triggering something in *them*. That was why I mentioned it.
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear (which I probably wasn’t). It’s just that I find all of that interaction with art, in all its forms, extremely interesting.