 A Japanese office worker fakes a pregnancy to get fair treatment on the job
Shibata is a thirty-four year old office worker. She performs a colourless administrative role for a company that makes cardboard cones. Her male co-workers have simply assumed that she will also do all the menial office tasks, such as cleaning up after them. One day when she is asked to clear away coffee cups she reaches her breaking point. A lie spontaneously bursts from her lips. She announces she’s pregnant and can’t abide the smell of coffee. It makes her sick. Suddenly her life is made much easier. Everyone is solicitous of her health and well being. And she gets plenty of maternity leave. There is now time to cook decent meals and look after herself properly. She even joins a pregnant women’s aerobic club and starts socialising with a group of soon-to-be mums. While life improves, it also gets weirder. How long can she keep up such a lie? Diary of a Void is magazine editor Emi Yagi’s first novel. Like so much modern Japanese fiction, it concentrates on the banalities of office work and the minutiae of urban life. The story’s unusual idea, of a feigned pregnancy to get out of work, keeps the story kicking along as the reader wonders how long the ruse can be kept up. A quirky, yet quietly mad story of personal desperation. Diary of a Void, by Emi Yagi. Published by Harvill / Secker. $29.99 Review by Chris Saliba  A warm, innovative, witty new novel from Sophie Cunningham
Alice Fox has been struggling for years with her novel. Her agent, Sarah, has misgivings. Does anyone really want to read about Leonard Woolf? Alice claims that he was once a rock star of the colonial era. What Sarah wants to know is: will it sell? But Alice doggedly continues on with her project, researching in English libraries and travelling to Sri Lanka (once Ceylon) where Leonard was once a colonial administrator. This Devastating Fever interweaves two timelines. Alice, between 2004 and 2021 and Leonard, between 1904 and his death in 1969. Alice's world is consumed with climate change, bushfires and in 2020, a global pandemic. Leonard's professional life starts in Ceylon. On one year's leave in 1911 he met Virginia Stephen and married her the following year. While his famous wife is better remembered, Leonard was also a prolific writer. A novel about writing a novel seems like a recipe for disaster, yet Sophie Cunningham has pulled off something genuinely moving. Through Alice's irrational determination to write her novel, and her self-deprecatory wit, we enter into the heart of one of the 20th century's most famous and famously complicated marriages. Deeply humane, full of humour and delightfully gossipy about the sex lives of the Bloomsbury Group, This Devastating Fever is innovative in format, chatty in tone and will seduce readers with its simple, direct voice. This Devastating Fever, by Sophie Cunningam. Published by Ultimo Press. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba. First published at Books + Publishing Release date 7th September, 2022  Everything you wanted to know about banks, fintech companies and crypto currencies, but were too afraid to ask.
Brett Scott is a former banking insider turned campaigner. What he campaigns for is quite simple – and surprising. His book is called Cloudmoney, but could more accurately be titled "In Praise of Cash". We are all now well versed in concepts like “big data” and “surveillance capitalism”, where our every click online is collected and owned by big corporations. But we tend to forget that every tap we make with our credit card, every online purchase, is recorded and kept. Banks and increasingly, fintech companies like PayPal and Amazon, have extraordinary power, which is becoming more and more concentrated. How to fight this concentration of power? The answer lies in cash. Cash is anonymous and offline. Every cash transaction chips away at the powers of fintech companies. To pay in cash can be considered almost a revolutionary act. As fintech companies and banks consolidate their power and control over currencies, they try at every step to veer us away from cash transactions. Amazon has even campaigned against laws that would require retailers to accept cash. That is a simple summation of Cloudmoney. Brett Scott is an excellent explainer of the arcane world of money and finance. He starts with a brief history of exchange systems, through to banking and state issued money, and finishes with the mind boggling world of crypto currencies. The latter, with their ability to remain anonymous, offer some alternative to evading the tentacles of the fintech behemoth. However, Scott believes crypto is a complicated story, one yet to be fully played out. A excellent primer on the how money systems work, and how they have accrued too much power in the digital age. Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets, by Brett Scott. Published by Jonathan Cape. $35 Review by Chris Saliba  Two Dutch writers consider how to make the roads more human friendly.
Dutch journalist Thalia Verkade teams up with the self-described “cycling professor” Marco te Brömmelstroet to examine the ways our roads and streets are currently used. Congestion, road rage, injuries, hospitalisations and fatalities are the current reality of our roads. Drivers rule the roads while pedestrians and cyclists must keep out of danger's way and avoid getting hit. News stories always report a pedestrian did something wrong – appearing out of nowhere, not crossing the lights in time. Verkade and te Brömmelstroet argue that the onus should be more on motorists to drive carefully. It is they who are at the wheel of a dangerous machine and should carry more responsibility. Speed limits should be reduced (speed causing the most fatalities) and an attitudinal change fostered to see roads and streets as public places, owned by all. In many ways, it is time – the need to get back and forth between places with clockwork precision – that is the enemy of this book. Movement doesn't propose any easy fixes to the problems of traffic congestion and road fatalities (around 1.3 million people die globally every year.) The authors rather meditate philosophically on how public space should function. Who should have the most right of way? What sort of safety should pedestrians be able to expect? Can cycling really save the day, or could it end up imitating cars with a desire for speed and exclusive access? The thinking for decades has been that we could build our way out of congestion by rolling out more roads. But as all research shows, build it and they will come. New roads designed to curb congestion have the opposite effect and soon fill up. On the other hand, reduce road availability and car drivers find alternative modes of transport. Another common belief is that reduced parking means reduced commerce. However, creating public spaces that are pedestrian friendly have shown to greatly increase foot traffic, and hence customers for business. In the final analysis, Movement argues for more human environments where cars don't dominate. How this mammoth task is achieved is anyone's guess. Verkade and te Brömmelstroet offer some stimulating ideas on the way forward. Movement, by Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet. Published by Scribe. $29.99 Review by Chris Saliba  A heartbreaking AIDS memoir.
John Foster was an historian, specialising in German history. For many years he taught at Melbourne University. His home was North Melbourne, where he lived with his partner Juan Céspedes. Foster was a practising Anglican and a parishioner at St Mary's. He rented a flat from the church in Howard Street, North Melbourne. (Residents of the inner-city suburb will recognise many locations and streets.) In 1981, on a trip to New York, John met Juan and they enjoyed a long distance relationship for several years, until their battle with the Australian immigration department started to yield results and Juan moved to Australia. It was the early days of AIDS and information was slowly emerging. There had been a disturbing rise in what were called “gay cancers”. New York was an area where such mysterious illnesses seemed to be proliferating. For many years, Juan had complained of stomach problems and had cast around for various cures to his condition. The idea that it could be AIDS was something the couple thought a remote possibility, but too terrible to contemplate. As Juan's health deteriorated, the possibility had to be confronted. By the time Juan found out he was HIV positive, he was living in Australia. The cherished dream of building a life together started crumbling apart as John took on a carer's role. AIDS is a slow and cruel death. Take Me to Paris, Johnny is candid and matter-of-fact about how the disease relentlessly ravages the body. Juan was once a vibrant and energetic dancer, but near the end he weighed under 40 kilograms. He was only thirty-three when he died. This is a lyrical yet unsentimental memoir that documents not only the illness itself, but social attitudes and the lack of legal protections for gay couples. There are, however, bright rays of sunshine in the support John and Juan received from St Mary's and the small community of friends they belonged to, but unbearable pain in the hopelessness of Juan's condition. John Foster died of AIDS in 1994, the year after Take Me to Paris, Johnny was published. John and Juan are buried together at Kew cemetery. A heartbreaking story told with restraint, humanity and dignity. Take Me to Paris, Johnny, by John Foster. Published by Text Classics Review by Chris Saliba  The struggles of exploited workers in a 1950s factory.
It's 1956. Middle aged Miss Merton applies for and gets a job at the Southern Textiles Dye Works – the Dyehouse. She works in the office area, doing admin and other basic tasks that ensures the factory runs smoothly, or as smoothly as possible. The factory manager is the aggressive and duplicitous Mr Renshaw, a sexual predator who often hits on the young female employees. One such victim is Patty Nicholls. She's an honest worker, hoping to one day marry and settle down. Troubled by Renshaw's attentions, Patty confides in Oliver Henerey, a street smart co-worker who lives in a share house with two socialists. The workers at the Dyehouse plough on despite their troubles. We learn of Miss Merton's emotionally complicated backstory (she's presumed by many to be a dull spinster), how one longtime worker and dye specialist, Hughie, is being unfairly pushed out of his position and the worries for financially stretched Barney, who's wife is expecting a child. As the broad cast of the novel's characters struggle to get ahead, avoid trouble and make ends meets, greater forces than themselves are at work. The upper management and board of directors are keen on rationalising the factory. They want to cut costs. The writing is on the wall. Despite this terrible cloud hanging over the workers, it is Miss Merton who has the fire in the belly. She stiffens her back and is ready to fight for a better future. Mena Calthorpe (1905 – 1996) joined the Communist Party in 1933, leaving after four years. She then joined the Australian Labor Party, aligning herself with the Party's left wing. Calthorpe's politics and her own experiences as a factory worker certainly informs The Dyehouse. It is a socialist novel very much in the vein of novels like Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole and Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered-Philanthropists. This may make it sound dour and stodgy. Anything but! Calthorpe writes in a beautiful, crisp prose, contrasting industrial muck and pollution with beautiful nature descriptions. The joy of sunny days and birdsong is accentuated, highlighting how workers manage to snatch pleasurable moments despite the colourless daily grind. The novel skilfully weaves together a compelling cast of characters and their differing stories, making The Dyehouse compulsive reading. Calthorpe offers realism, but carefully tempered and neatened into a fine artistry. It's a great shock after having read The Dyehouse to realise this classic of socialist literature isn't better known or studied in school. It addresses key issues of the conflict between labour and capital that still rage today. The Dyehouse, by Mena Calthorpe. Published by Text. $12.95 Review by Chris Saliba  Intrepid philosopher Isabel Dalhousie investigates an unfortunate family rift, and administers some unwanted medicine.
Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher and editor of The Review of Applied Ethics. She lives in Scotland with her musician husband Jamie, and their two young boys, Charlie and Magnus. On a night out to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, she is asked to join their board in an advisory role. Isabel accepts, thinking it won't take up too much of her time. But her husband, Jamie, knows better. He counsels his wife against getting drawn into other people's affairs, as she tends to do. Her assurances soon become void when a woman named Laura with ties to the portrait gallery asks her to help out in a family dispute. Laura's adult son, Richard, is having political disputes with his father. It's got to such a stage that the two aren't talking at all. Would Isabel have a word or two with Richard to try and call a truce? The Sweet Remnants of Summer is the 17th in Alexander McCall Smith's The Sunday Philosophy Club series. The novel takes up everyday philosophical questions, but written in a pleasing and accessible form, much in the manner of Alain De Botton. This is mixed with a gently comic portrait of middle-class life, reminiscent of Anne Tyler. A neat, enjoyable read that doesn't overstep its brief. The Sweet Remnants of Summer, by Alexander McCall Smith. Published by Little, Brown. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba |
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