Unconventional tale both funny and sad

JOYFUL<br><b>Robert Hillman</b><br><i>Text Publishing</i>
JOYFUL<br><b>Robert Hillman</b><br><i>Text Publishing</i>
Joyful centres on asexual Leon Joyce, a private, wealthy dealer in fine and rare books who in his South Yarra house has three wardrobes full of women's clothing.

Not just any women's clothing, however, but a collection that takes in all the big names of fashion, from Chanel, Dior and Claire McCardell to Pucci, Price and Schiaparelli.

But Leon is no cross-dresser. Instead, unburdened by sexual desire, he gets his pleasure from hiring models to parade his collection.

That is until he meets 40-year-old Tess Wachowicz, beautiful, accomplished and splendidly lustful.

Their marriage, Tess' second, puzzles their friends and admirers as the arrangement is definitely unconventional.

However, Leon adores Tess, in part for the way she wears his collection of haute couture.

When Tess dies, Leon is broken not only by her death but by the discovery of her correspondence with an unknown lover.

He retreats into near lunacy and to Joyful, his late great-aunt's property in rural Victoria, buying up the local supply of whisky and hatching a freakish plan to posthumously regain Tess' love.

Slightly crazed, this unconventional story is essentially two similar struggles, at once both funny and sad. They finally merge and find resolution.

Ted Fox is a Dunedin online marketing consultant.

 

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