Morley only lived in Australia for a few years but it had an impact on his life: he would use Australian actors in London and also write on Australian topics, including TV plays and this novel.
It's about a group of friends who know each other from being neighbours in Whale Beach.
* Ingrid Christiansen aka Bevie (short for her adopted name 'Beverley') - her parents bought her out from Sweden when she was three. ("As far as Bevie was concerned, Australia was the greatest country in the world, Europe was a gloomy place where it was always raining and America was full of power crazed capitalists, making hydrogen bombs and capable of starting wars. This feeling most betrayed her European origin." (p 6)). She spends most of her time at the beach, has a rich father, mother dead. She's nineteen (p 66).
* Tom Purvis, who works for the ABC, has "slept with most of the young actresses in Sydney" (p 10) but also sleeps with men. "He had considerable private means" (p 10).Owns Bratt's apartment by the harbour which Bevie moves into when Bratt goes overseas. He sleeps with Hervey goes and leaves Australia with Mary.
* Hervey Cross "a small, uncertain man" (p 25) an academic from England who worked in Australia. He is gay, has an affair with Tom.
* American professor and his wife. Professor and Mrs Daisy Allbright. They don't do much
* Mary Cartwright, Harry's secretary. Goes with Tom. ("Tom wants to marry me." "Don't be silly. He's a homo." "Wouldn't be the first time one got married, Harry." (p 107)
* Englishman in Oz on a Commonwealth scholarship: Jonathan Curtis. He has a stammer. He falls for Bevie,
* Dame Eleanor Harper aka Ellie. 71 yeas old. Patron of the arts. Husband had made money in Broome. She was "the most talked-of artist of her generation". (p 22)
* Bratt aka William Brattle, a composer who "sponged on his father's money - the Australian wine industry was steadily growing in prosperity" (p 8). He appears at the beginning of the book, is dating Bevie, then disappears overseas to San Francisco and comes back at the end. He hates Australia has come criticisms p 12-13.
* Cynthia Carey. Wife of Harry Carey. She has a breakdown and goes to America.
*Harry Carey. Rich businessman. Aged 42. Separated from his wife. Sleeping with his secretary Mary. Starts affair with Bevie. She has an abortion. They get back together and are going to get married though are hounded by reporters who want to do a story on them. They die in a car accident.
* Det-Sgt Baxter, a cop.
Morley talks a lot about breasts and nudity: "under the single sheet she was naked" (p 4), "her breasts showed she had never been near bearing a child" (p 5), "the pectoral muscles lifted her breasts" (p 5), "with blue eyes and large breasts" (p 53), "he hated to be seen naked; equally, he adored looking at a woman's naked body" (p 55), "the bulge of her heavy breasts" (p 97), "she was fair, smiling and full-bosomed" (p 129)).
There's a lot of talk about what Australia is like - snappy summarisations from the characters.
A lot of talk about the weather. Many chapters end with that.
The plot involves a girl going missing from Coogee called Sally O'Neil. She is found raped and murdered in Barrenjoey Road (a long way from Coogee) near Whale Beach. An Aboriginal man, Johnno, is caught and "confessed". (Morley describes him as "half aboriginie, half stupid and wholly illiterate" p 77. He never spends too much time with Johnno or gives him much background.)
I think this is based on the Max Stuart case. The cops ask some questions of the friends. Hervey stayed at Tom Purvis' house at Whale Beach on the weekend of Jan 13th. Hervey tells cops neighbour of Purvis was Harry Carey and he was visited by Bev.
Our heroes write a letter to the paper requesting the evidence be more thoroughly investigated (Harry, Cynthia, Eleanor, Tom Purvis and Neville Henriques).
Ellie: "we're all involved, Harry. Ever since a white finger pointed and an English voice said: 'What manly fellows'." (p 95)
The police turn on them... this is good stuff. Though the police are involed
Johnno dies in prison. Hervey commits suicide via an overdose of sleeping tables. He reveals in a death bed letter that he paid Johnno for sex - so Johnny couldn't have killed the girl. He also says he had offered Sally a lift home but Sally had refused. (I don't think we never find out who actually did it... an open verdict is returned).
The characters are irritating. All the breasts and weather descriptoins. All the zingers. It feels made up as it goes along, apart from a little bit of plot about the case. No one seems to work. The Aboriginal is a device.
But it has value in its depiction of Australian society. LGBTI people. Corrupt police. Abortion rackets.
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| The Age 23 April 1966 p 25 |
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| Sydney tribune 8 June 1966 p 6 |
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| Canberra Times 30 April 1966 p 10 |
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