Review: Vivien Horler

Restless Dolly Maunder, by Kate Grenville (Canongate)

Shortly before she dies, around the mid-1950s, Dolly Maunder looks back on her life.

Her generation was the hinge, she thinks: when she was born in the early 1880s the door of female aspiration had been shut tight. Then it began to creak open. “My generation was the hinge that it had to be forced around on, one surface grinding over another. No wonder it was painful.”

This is an Australian historical novel by an acclaimed author, and it was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2024. Kate Grenville has won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and been shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award (named after the author of the brilliant book, film and now TV series My Brilliant Career).

She has written more than 10 novels and a handful of non-fiction books. As far as I can recall, this is the first of her novels I have read, and I loved it.

Dolly Maunder is born on a farm near a remote village in New South Wales – “three dusty streets and a pub”. She is five before she visits the nearest town, Tamworth, 20 miles away.

She is the second youngest of 13 children, and lucky enough to have been born in time for compulsory schooling. However this ended at 14, which meant her older siblings were fortunate if they managed just a year or two in the classroom, but Dolly gets to complete a full primary education.

Her ambition, along with that of her friend Minnie, is to become a pupil-teacher, like Miss Murray at Currabubula school, daughter of the schoolmaster, but her father, who can write only  his name, puts the kibosh on that.

“Over my dead body,” he says. “Out to work! And have every man point the finger and say I can’t support my family!”

Now Dolly’s days consist of the drudgery of women’s work at home: cleaning, handwashing all the laundry, cooking, milking, churning the butter, laying the fire, kneading the dough, baking the bread, the awful and smelly business of making the laundry soap with tallow and lye.

“There were days when Dolly woke up and thought that if she had to look at it all again she’d rather die… But there was no choice about that or anything else.”

Eventually Dolly settles for marriage to Bert Russell, a handlanger on her father’s farm. He’s bright, dandified, a favourite of her parents, but essentially lazy. Dolly understands you have to marry, or you’ll end up caring for your parents, a spinster sitting on the veranda, fetching their coffee.

A driven Dolly, with Bert in tow, sets off on an ambitious career – first a small grocery shop, then a small hotel, then a bigger one. Children come, but the parents are very busy.

They take business chances, and every one turns out well, until the big hotel they buy in 1928 which, for the first time, means they need a mortgage.

This is the story of a strong-willed woman determined to make her way, and not allow any obstacles to trip her up. It means she turns out to be a tough old bat, not always easy to love.

There is a fabulously poignant twist at the end, one that almost makes you want to start again.

My own grandmother was born around the time of Dolly’s birth, and while she was in no way as driven as Dolly, this book gave me a new insight into her life. The hinge generation.

So when I came along in the early 1950s, like Kate Grenville, there were no real barriers, provided you had parents who cared for you, could afford to educate you, and were open to the opportunities presented to you. Thanks, folks.