Girl With A Monkey

Thea Astley's debut novel the story of a young girls last day in a town that is far too provincial for her wants and needs. Though a simple story it is pulled along by some mesmerising writing that has grabbed my imagination as to the people and place.

The Girl with a Monkey. The title is possibly condescending but then the author would have been aware of that. Is it a metaphor for Elsie, the leading characters troubles and fears be that with her relationships with her profession, provincialism, the snobbish middle class or with men?

Else admits that she is strangely entertained by her last day. She despises herself for this but makes excuses. She enjoys her own observations of the local middle class, the prints of Gauguin and Millet on their walls for example. Enjoys her own despising of the education system that took her to provincial Townsville where she has to deal with a school principle who has little time for her. But most of all she despises having to deal with her relationship with Harry, an older and less educated road worker who is the major key to Elsie and her monkey. Elsie may just be enjoying her intellectual superiority over Harry but as she says at times Harry shows native shrewdness and humour with Elsie even at times finding him a “dark horse”. But on the last day her relationship with Harry comes to a head. She fears violence but may not have really wanted to avoid Harry as she “craved the dramatic”. This craving for the dramatic comes to a fitting end when the reader decides as what the monkey is.

Thea Astley is an outstanding writer! Four eventual Miles Franklin awards prove that. Being my third novel by Thea I know that she is a writer who appeals to my own reading wants and needs. This is a really good novel.