Why a Booktrail?
1970s – Inner-suburban Melbourne: a world of communal living, drugs, music and a whole lot more
Monkey Grip
What you need to know before your trail
The story of Nora, a single mum in the 1970s, who falls in love with a junkie. Living in a series of shared houses, she is part of a generation who were starting to find their own way in life. She has a series of lovers until she meets Jago who despite his use of smack and his dubious behaviour catches her eye. On a trip to Bangkok he gets arrested and Nora awaits his return where they travel together to random places and Tasmania where his mother still lives.
Wanna be actors too, this couple is hooked on drugs, love and the addictions they must face.
Travel Guide
Inner city life in a Melbourne suburb in the 1970s?
This is a particular kind of suburb – one full of hippies and nomads who live in a share all environment – living arrangements, sex, drugs, drink and anything else they care to.
Melbourne comes across vividly if not in a particularly good light – but then this is a different time and a particular section of society who live life one day at a time, one hit at a time and don’t think of a future instead living in the present. Flat sharing is common to many people now and the trails and tribulations of this is magnified here.
Being set in the 1970s there are some details which will make you smile – do banks still have bankbooks for example? Despite the drugs and drink and sexual favours, the overall sense is one of a simple way of life when everything was played on a 78 instead of an ipod (now that is really digging up the nostalgia!)
This life may be unsavoury to many but it is full of raw grit. Some very graphic images and a less than safe lifestyle.
Hedonism doesn’t quite cover this novel’s themes or setting.
Where Next?
