Sunnyside, by Joanna Murray-Smith

I bought Sunnyside by Joanna Murray-Smith ages ago, when she gave a discussion of the author at my local library, and now I feel quite a fool for have left it so long to read it.  It reminds me that there are some real treasures, moaning on my TBR shelf-about 600 books at last count-but I do like add to it for fear that if I don't buy a book when I see it, it may disappear from the shelves book stores because they are so mercilessly about graves of literary fiction, no matter how good it is.

If you saw my sensational fragment of Sunnyside, you will know that the novel is a comedy of manners satirising The Good Life.  Murray-Smith is a famous playwright here in Melbourne, and she has opted for what is, of course, Mt Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula, such as the setting for a privileged suburb called Sunnyside, with less stylish Frankston disguised as nearby Deptford.  The main industry in Sunnyside is real estate, and the annual event is the real estate agents community Race, the inner city waiters race aping but with brokers with the course Open to inspection implementation boards.

The book begins with the dinner revelation that Molly, wife of David and mother of Justin, has been enjoying himself with the man who cleans their swimming pool.  This causes an existential crisis under their set, wondering if they also miss out on sexual adventure and self-development, and others analysis of the purpose and the direction of their own marriages.  New temptations arise: a sexy old school friend arrives in Sunnyside, and Assistant Professor gets dangerously close to a student.   Children on the cusp of adolescence also have their own existential crisis: school, of course, but also dismay about parental behavior, and anxiety about contemporary problems and their own powerlessness in the face of adult indifference.

Indeed, the only flaw in this otherwise characterization in perfectly built novel with its devastating conclusion was Grace, the daughter of Harry and Alice.  Alice is an author who has lost her mojo in the slowness of the suburbs, and the speeches that eleven-year-old who Grace in the League public speaking delivers seem strange out-of-place in the sparkling dialogue that flows through this novel.

Murray-Smith offers intriguing food for thought in Sunnyside, often with penetrating insights delivered through her characters meditations on life, love and desire. She dissects the ambivalence of women limited by the relentless route of the female body, (p. 341); the theatrical bust-up that [makes] people think again (p. 359); and marriage as a calendar:

Alice herself had wondered, what would I? What would she without Harry and the children, without the House to restore her to the Earth.  A family gave you instant name, purpose, a future made up of graduates and twenty-firsts, from birthdays, anniversaries and surprise theme of family Christmas with their hothouse arguments and festive nibbles. What marriage gave you was a calendar.  And now ... and now ... Molly had committed this folly, nothing all that great, really, but in this small community, an act of lively assertiveness.  As thoughts words were, Alice thought, one can hear the whispering about the suburban lawns: dare I I dare, I dare? (p. 360)

Sunnyside is an entertaining book, but have trouble now.  There were copies on eBay when I looked, and you may be lucky and find a used copy on garden furniture. Or hunt it out of a library, it's worth tracking down.

Author: Joanna Murray-Smith
Title: Sunnyside
Publisher: Viking Penguin, 2005
ISBN: 9780670042975
View the original article here