Elizabeth Harrower is one of the most important of the postwar Australian fiction writers. Her five novels are described as lyrical, insightful and finely turned.
In this collection of 12 short stories dating from the 1960s to 2014, Harrower shows her grasp of the essence of a short story.
In each slice of a life, an issue of humanity is exposed, shepherded through either a crisis or a challenge and resolved with a credible reaction, sometimes leaving a question as to what might come next.
Janet, sent out to the fair with Uncle Hector and his girlfriend, experiences the anxiety and uncertainties that being the young hanger-on bring. As the time passes and the challenges increase, she makes a bold decision and acts on it.
Alice presents as a little girl who is disposed to be good. Alice's mother is irrational, raucous, bony, quick-tempered and noisy. Alice and her mother step around each other with considerable caution. Alice moves through life with this caution, but slowly, ever so slowly, becomes a different person.
Adults also shift their state and status. Dr Philippa Fraser, after her divorce, attempts to find herself by holidaying by the North Sea and has difficulty deciding just what her life really has been. Julia Holt's attempt to populate her life with characters classified as class I or II proteges still doesn't change her from never being impressed. Hector Shaw dominates his wife and daughter through the purchase of a holiday house that becomes a demand for them and allows them no lives of their own. His daughter Del dreams of escaping from her parents when they go on an ocean cruise.
In each of these offerings, Harrower invites us to reflect on events, characteristics, relationships, situations that give rise to uncertainty or dissatisfaction and the way her characters react and respond to this.
• Willie Campbell is a Dunedin educator.
