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From
the BLURB:
'You look the type to break your father’s heart.'
'Yeah, but he broke mine first.’
When Rosie
Gennaro first meets Jimmy Hailler, she has walked away from life in Sydney,
leaving behind the place on Dalhousie that her father, Seb, painstakingly
rebuilt for his family but never saw completed. Two years later, Rosie returns
to the house and living there is Martha, whom Seb Gennaro married less than a
year after the death of Rosie’s mother. Martha is struggling to fulfil Seb’s
dream, while Rosie is coming to terms with new responsibilities. And so begins
a stand-off between two women who refuse to move out of the home they both lay
claim to.
As the battle
lines are drawn, Jimmy Hailler re-enters Rosie’s life. Having always watched
other families from the perimeters, he’s now grappling, heartbreakingly, with
forming one of his own . . .
An unforgettable
story about losing love and finding love; about the interconnectedness of lives
and the true nature of belonging, from one of our most acclaimed writers.
‘The Place on Dalhousie’ is the new contemporary
fiction novel from Australian author Melina Marchetta. It can be read as a
sequel-of-sorts, to where many of the characters within first appeared; in Saving Francesca as teenagers in 2003,
and then again in 2010 with The Piper’s
Son as young adults. But Dalhousie
can also be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone for newcomers to Marchetta’s
writing.
Avid readers though, will also be pleased to learn
that two teasing shorts Melina wrote in the lead-up to this story being told, do appear within; ‘When
Rosie Met Jim’ from Review of Australian Fiction, and ‘The
Centre’ from the Just Between Us anthology.
But first – a bit of background on the momentousness
of this release.
Since Francesca
came out in 2003, one name has haunted and delighted devout fans of Melina Marchetta’s
books – Jimmy Hailler. He was the weird boy that Francesca Spinelli’s disparate
friends and broken family collected and gathered close during the events of
that book. He is a character that Melina has spoken lovingly about at book events,
as being inspired by the students she met during her teaching at an all-boys
school. In the beginning of Saving
Francesca there appeared to be something a bit “off” about Jimmy – like
maybe he was just the bully, one to steer away from. But over the course of that
story his decency shone through; he was still quirky and with a lonely broken
family, but it became apparent that he was fiercely loyal and caring too.
Jimmy’s absence from 2010 follow-up book The Piper’s Son was deeply felt – not
just by the characters, but the readers too – as it’s revealed after some loss
and heartbreak again in his life, Jimmy had taken off to God knows where during
the events of that book … in the interim after The Piper’s Son and every time I attended a Melina event, or read
an interview with her – the question of Jimmy would inevitably come up. Much
like his friends Frankie, Tara, Tom, Justine, Siobhan and their collective
families – readers were worried about him, and wanted to know if he was okay.
More importantly – they wanted to know if Melina would ever write his story
(which is the same thing, in a way.)
Much as there’s always been something innately lonely
about Jimmy, he struck me as a character who best thrived from contact and the
collective – so it didn’t surprise me in the least, when I first learned that
when she told it, Jimmy’s story wouldn’t be his alone … rather The Place on Dalhousie is Jimmy’s story,
and that of the girl that disaster and chance place into his life, as well as
that girl’s stepmother whom she has a fraught relationship with.
Jimmy seemed to shine brightest when he was surrounded, nurtured, and uplifted by the women in his life – Mia Spinelli, Frankie, Tara, Justine, and Siobhan – so it feels utterly right and natural that in Dalhousie we get three points of view of not only Jimmy, but Rosie (the girl) and her stepmother (Martha) too.
Jimmy seemed to shine brightest when he was surrounded, nurtured, and uplifted by the women in his life – Mia Spinelli, Frankie, Tara, Justine, and Siobhan – so it feels utterly right and natural that in Dalhousie we get three points of view of not only Jimmy, but Rosie (the girl) and her stepmother (Martha) too.
Jimmy and Rosie meet in a Queensland flood in 2010,
and then have to reconnect 15-months later in Sydney, when Rosie moves back
into her childhood home. The home that her father, Seb, built for her and her
mother Loredana – who died of cancer when Rosie was 15, and before the house
was finished. Seb married Martha 11 months after her mother died, and Rosie
never forgave him – not really – and not even after he died just before she
turned 18.
What Jimmy walks into is a house divided – literally –
and about to be finished for the first time since Seb conceived it. Rosie is
living upstairs, Martha downstairs at Dalhousie Street, neither of them willing
to give ground or back down – Martha wants to sell the place and split the
money with Rosie, Rosie just wants Martha gone.
And this is the fraught setting of the story – at the
heart of a family. It’s a book of divisions; not just of the
upstairs/downstairs nature of co-existing within the setting, but of divisions
within themselves and who they want to be … which sometimes means leaving
behind who they were.
And that’s all I’ll say on the story.
I started reading these books when I was 16 – the year
Saving Francesca came out. And then
when The Piper’s Son released, I was
23. I’m 31 this year, and I continue to be gratefully shocked at the timing of
Marchetta’s release for these books and characters, who I’m glad seem to follow
me to milestones as they live their fictional own. The Place on Dalhousie slotted into my heart as easily as those
first two books, and without giving too much away I’ll only say that … Jimmy’s
okay. And that’s all I wanted from this story – but I got it, and so much more.
Melina’s characters have started echoing for me, and I
was so glad for those ripples in Dalhousie.
It’s not repetition, but foundation that I appreciate – this realisation that
one has to come before the other for a story to begin. I felt that about Tell
the Truth, Shame the Devil; that read to me like a companion to The Piper's Son. And it’s never more
clear to me than in Dalhousie – at
the way Melina has written another fiercely complex and messy young woman in
Rosie, who I think would get along smashingly with Taylor Markham from On
The Jellicoe Road, Quintana of Charyn from The Lumatere
Chronicles and Violette Zidane from Tell
the Truth. I can think of no higher praise for Melina, than saying that she
writes young female characters who don’t give a shit if you like them or not –
they’ve been through enough in their life, and trying to be “likeable” and
“nice” is low on their list of priorities, and not nearly as important as
learning to trust themselves and who to let into their complicated lives. Their
flaws make these characters more interesting – not less likeable. Melina makes
you work to really know these women, and to love them – but once you do,
there’s no going back (as true for readers as other characters).
I could say that Martha reminds me of Georgie from The Piper’s Son – only because Melina
continues to write women of a certain age who are otherwise forgotten in
fiction (be it books, TV or film) – she continues to give them interesting
high-stakes when society tells them they’re out of the game, and never more
than in matters of the heart (Georgie and Sam from Piper’s and Trevanion and Beatriss from Lumatere are among my favourite romances of any book – but go back
and read any Melina Marchetta novel and see how effortlessly she weaves
interesting intergenerational stories for women of all ages.) I
especially got goosebumps when Melina touches on this erasure of older women in
the form of back-story for Rosie’s Sicilian grandmother, Eugenia. But actually,
something of Martha reminds me of Frankie; in the way they are both the hub for
their friends and family, maybe without always meaning to be.
And Jimmy. I have long thought that Jimmy’s fictional familiar
was Froi, from The
Lumatere Chronicles – and for so long I thought it was their tragedies
that echoed for me. But something clicked with Dalhousie, and a line that Froi says in Quintana
of Charyn, when he tells another character;
‘One day,’ Froi said, clearing his voice of emotion, ‘I’ll introduce you to my queen and my king and my captain; and Lord August and Lady Abian, who have given me a home; and the Priestking and Perri and Tesadora and my friend Lucian; and then you’ll understand that I would never have met them if you hadn’t journeyed to Sarnak all those years ago, Arjuro. And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I'd pick the wretched life over and over again.’
Ah, that’s Jimmy. That’s his story; ‘And if the gods were to give me a choice between
living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the
slightest chance of crossing their path, then I'd pick the wretched life over
and over again.’
He’s the character who’s had the toughest life
of all his friends. He’s the one that we’ve all worried about the most, have
waited for Melina to tell us that he’s okay.
But that’s the thing – he would choose the
wretched life over and over again, because it lead him here. To Rosie, and
Martha. Back to his friends in Sydney (yes, all of them) coming together again
like they did when they first started collecting each other in school. And that
wretched life leads him to this house and a life, on Dalhousie.
I thought I pitied Jimmy for the longest time, but
here I see my true affection for him – for all these characters, really – lies
in accepting the good with the bad. Their flaws and imperfections made them
real to me, and I love them more for it. And I am going to miss them so
terribly, if this book really is the end.
But I do leave them here I think, somewhere in Leichhardt
(or Stuttgart, London, a little town in Queensland, walking around Haberfield,
about to board a train at Central…) being messy and carrying on their lives –
making mistakes and seeing them through, being happy and sad but always together,
even when they’re apart.
These characters really do feel like friends, probably
because they helped in introducing me to so many in real life (those of us who
have grown up around Melina’s stories, and found each other because of them).
My God I am going to miss them, but I cannot thank the universe enough that they crossed my path …
My God I am going to miss them, but I cannot thank the universe enough that they crossed my path …
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