I’ll admit that I was totally seduced by the cover of Emily Perkins’ latest novel, Lioness (I also really, really loved one of her early novels, The Forrests).

The story focuses on Therese, a woman with a successful home-wares business, and married to an older man, Trevor, who’s in property development. When the novel opens, Trevor has run into significant legal issues related to his latest hotel development. At the same time, Therese befriends a neighbour, Claire, who is doing the ‘mid-life crisis’ in her own, unique way.

I don’t need to say much more about the plot – in many ways, this is not a plot-driven novel. Nor is it character-driven. Instead, it’s arranged around themes, predominantly focused on our sense of identity, and ageing.

Of Claire, Therese says – I wondered is she had reached that magical state, the ultimate consolation prize for ageing: not giving a fuck. There’s a wonderful scene where Claire throws out all of her cosmetics and covers the mirrors in her house – in her words, she’s rejecting ‘chemical warfare’.

“But doesn’t your skin get dry?” I would want to know.
“This is what I’m talking about,” Claire would say. “Dig yourself out!

There’s an equally brilliant scene where Claire’s sister, Melissa, freaks out when she sees how much Claire has ‘let herself go’ (Melissa says, “…what’s that smell? Patchouli? I mean, fucking patchouli? I’m very, very worried about you.” I laughed.)

For the record, I have achieved that ultimate consolation prize!

There’s a string of incredibly dramatic scenes in this novel – a near drowning, a burning painting, a mystery poo on the carpet, to name a few. None are obviously related to the next but the net result is significant – each contributes to the main themes of the book, and each serves to create a sense of apprehension that hums through the whole novel. I need to emphasise how clever this is because ordinarily I might read these ‘dramatic’ scenes and feel annoyed by their lack of relevance. Instead, Perkins allows the tension to build and the energy flows over into riveting scenes with Therese and Claire, and Therese and her adult step-children. It’s far more sophisticated than a mystery poo sounds.

As I said, the guts is about our sense of identity. Therese acknowledges Trevor’s role in shaping the person she has become – First the brand had become Therese Thorne, then I did… – but she also knows she works hard to curate her upper-middle-class life, and that it is a fragile creation.

In the screensaver image, we oozed what I had thought of as wellbeing, and now saw was wealth.

As the story progresses, Therese’s difficult childhood is revealed, giving context for her yearning for the picture-perfect life.

If you need any convincing of Perkins’ skill, there’s this:

Since Trevor and I got together I’d never been unfaithful, not even kissed anyone else: I saw fidelity as something pure, like a crystal bowl, that once chipped was worthless. Not like if you fell off the wagon and had to start your daily count all over again. You could always get sober. No, like if you got a tattoo. Or killed someone. You would always be a person who had killed someone. Keeping a crystal bowl from smashing for thirty-odd years had turned into an endurance task. I’d forgotten the reason, it had just become about the bowl. And that wasn’t faithfulness, I realised now… it was pride.

I really enjoyed this book. The ending may have lacked a little grunt, but overall it was thought-provoking and the crazy, dramatic bits made me laugh.

4/5

I got into the car with a cellophane-wrapped steak and cheese pie warm in my hands and tossed a packet of cigarettes onto the passenger seat. Two things I hadn’t bought for thirty years. Eating the pie was chaotic, somehow filling was left over once all the pastry had gone…

As part of the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, I’m comparing the Belfast summer and Melburnian winter. The results for the day I finished this book (June 10): Belfast 6°-15° and Melbourne 9°-17°.