This compelling debut novel follows a young female painter whose ambitions begin to butt against those of her older lover and teacher, who regards her as a muse
speaks to astonishingly similar themes of older men, privilege, art, family and ambition. Which is not to say that either book is derivative, but that there is a growing body of work asking these questions: can women have a life that is domesticcreative? And is it love that gets in the way of art, or is it children, or husbands, or desire?
In this novel, Frances takes a little while to come into her fury, although when she does it is deeply satisfying. At first, Clem’s seduction of her is confident and careless – when she first goes to his house to sit for him, Frances knows from the outset that the day will end in sex. Needham doesn’t write Clem as a sleaze, or even a playboy; their relationship is written as valid and reciprocal.
Frances, on the other hand, paints landscapes that have “accumulated a modest but dedicated following among the mature, well-off women of Sydney’s east: lips and nails painted coral red, diamond rings like boulders slipping sideways on arthritic fingers, voices like gravel that are accustomed to being heard.” Her work is quieter than Clem’s, although not lacking in passion.
But unlike Clem, Frances’ art is tempered by economic concerns and ambition, a source of tension between the two, and a provocation for readers. Like her art, Frances’ narrative voice is frank and unadorned, an antidote to the kind of highbrow vernacular often associated with the art world. Frances is uncomfortable in this world from the beginning, far more at home in her decrepit cottage in Bald Hill, with her ex-con neighbour Rina.
In the prologue, Frances stands awkwardly in the gallery for Clem’s exhibition. She watches two men looking at the painting of the girl in the pink dress, and then looking at her. “They’re saying the woman in the painting is me,” she thinks.
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