Customer Reviews

The Women in Black

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Set in the 1960s in a fictional department store in Sydney, this delightful book is pitch perfect.

The story focuses on the women working in Ladies' Cocktail Frocks and in Ladies' Evening Frocks sections of the store. The demarcation relates not only the class of customer, but also to the Aussies (Mrs Williams, Fay and Miss Baines, Patty) in Cocktail Frocks and the very Continental Magda in Evening Frocks. Enter Lesley/Lisa, a naive young thing doing a short stint during the holidays after completing her Leaving Certificate.

We learn a little of their private lives and aspirations, and the attitudes of the time (especially how men and women relate to each other, and the education of women) are spot on.

If you didn't live through this era, this book will make you feel as though you did. And for those of us who DID live through it, it is a wonderful time capsule - but with the addition of sophisticated wit and humour. Very good

The Women in Black is first of only four published novels by Madeleine St John. This edition includes a perceptive introduction by her contemporary, Bruce Beresford, and an obituary by Christopher Potter. Under the guise of a story about the staff of the Ladies' Cocktail section at F.G. Goode's (the Women in Black), St John takes us back to Sydney in the late 1950's. St John manages, with very few words, to bring back the feel of those times, the ideas and attitudes, in full living colour. Nostalgia overtakes the reader at the mention of prices in guineas, frocks (as opposed to dresses), men and women in hats, shops closing at 5.30, local calls for four pennies, the school Intermediate and Leaving certificate results posted at the newspaper offices.........the list goes on. With mention of "reffos" and "continentals", and salami as a novel food, Sydney of the late 50's is perfectly depicted. The dialogue is so authentic, it has the reader alternately laughing out loud and cringing ("......don't say anythink......"). St John's characters are convincing and easy to love. It was such fun to be a fly on the wall at F.G.Goode's (which was fairly obviously David Jones) and how lovely to realise that those formidable Women in Black were real people with the same insecurities as the rest of us!
The Women in Black has been aptly described as an Australian Classic. It truly was a delight to read!