The Women in Black: A Novel

by Madeleine St. John Narrated by Deidre Rubenstein

Overview

“The book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up.” -Hilary Mantel

“Tart, beguiling, witty and compassionate, Madeleine St. John's novel is a literary boost for the spirits.” -Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

“A deceptively smart comic gem.” -The New York Times Book Review

“Witty and delicious.” -People

The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at Goode's department store, are busy selling ladies' dresses during the holiday rush. But they somehow find time to pursue other goals...

Patty, in her mid-thirties, has been working at Goode's for years. Her husband, Frank, eats a steak for dinner every night, watches a few minutes of TV, and then turns in. Patty yearns for a baby, but Frank is always too tired for that kind of thing.

Sweet, unlucky Fay wants to settle down with a nice man, but somehow nice men don't see her as marriage material.

Glamorous Magda runs the high-end gowns department. A Slovenian émigré, Magda is cultured and continental and hopes to open her own boutique one day.

Lisa, a clever and shy teenager, takes a job at Goode's during her school break. Lisa wants to go to university and dreams of becoming a poet, but her father objects to both notions.

By the time the last marked-down dress is sold, all of their lives will be forever changed.

A pitch-perfect comedy of manners set during a pivotal era, and perfect for fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Women in Black conjures the energy of a city on the cusp of change and is a testament to the timeless importance of female friendship.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Department store particulars are part of the charm of The Women in Black, a deceptively smart comic gem that tracks four women through the pandemonium of one holiday season in 1950s Sydney. Laced with a fierce intelligence that captures the limited options for women and postwar xenophobia views, it’s also a love letter to department stores of yore.” —Susan Coll, New York Times Book Review

“Like the deceptively simple (but perfectly crafted) little black dress, this delicious and sly masterpiece works its magic from the very first sentence. Once you slip into its folds— full of hope and new beginnings, of luck and laughter and love— I dare you not to catch yourself smiling, and wanting to twirl, for days and days and days.” –Sarah Blake, author of The Guest House and The Postmistress

"A little gem... shot through with old-fashioned innocence and sly humour."
—Vogue

"A highly sophisticated work, full of funny, sharp and subtle observations...a small masterpiece."
—Sunday Times (UK)

"There is something special about The Women in Black. St John's tone is a joy: brisk, perfectly managed and, in its disdain for clutter, oddly life-affirming. She casts an airy spell with the deftness of her prose, which moves gracefully, swiftly and with perfect manners... conjures a Sydney on the cusp of modern promise; a place where her characters can meet the future with a bright face and step out of the past like an old dress, where limits can be lightly shaken off."
—Delia Falconer, Australian

"Seductive, hilarious, brilliantly observed, this novel shimmers with wit and tenderness."
—Helen Garner, author of Monkey Grip and The Spare Room

"A delicious book. Funny and happy, it's like the breath of youth again."
—Jane Gardam

"A witty little gem of a tale... instantly transports readers back to a more genteel era." —Kirkus

“Funny and light, this story moves quickly as each character navigates the 1950s-era challenges of being a working
woman in a male-dominated society with limited options for the happily ever after they all strive for.” —Booklist

Kirkus Reviews

2019-10-28
In this witty little gem of a tale, reminiscent of Barbara Pym and Muriel Spark, three women working at a posh department store see their lives turn important corners while a fourth lends a helping hand.

"At the end of a hot November day Miss Baines and Mrs. Williams of the Ladies' Frocks Department at Goode's were complaining to each other while they changed out of their black frocks before going home." The opening sentence of Australian novelist St John's (A Pure Clear Light, 1996, etc.) first novel, originally published in 1993, instantly transports readers back to a more genteel era. The setting is Sydney, the era post-World War II, and the cast of characters a mix of middle- and working-class locals and bohemian refugees. Teenager Lesley Miles, an aspiring poet who prefers to be called Lisa, lands a Christmas job at Goode's while waiting to see if she has passed the Leaving Certificate exam and qualified for a university place. Employed partly in Ladies' Cocktail, she is also seconded to Model Gowns, where she meets Magda ("no one could even try to pronounce her frightful Continental surname"), a formidable, sensuous, shrewd figure whose social gatherings will introduce Lisa and Fay Baines to a new world of sophistication and possibility. Patty Williams, meanwhile, is the character with the most intractable problem, namely her husband, Frank, whose dim libido leaves her despairing at the unlikelihood of children. St John, who died in 2006, has created a meld of New World naiveté and old European wisdom, its simplicity punctured with enduring savvy: "The point is they are happy together now. It is the only possible beginning. The middle and end must take care of themselves as they always do. Or not, as the case may be."

A quirky period fairy tale laced with female networks and glamorous gowns.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940174917101
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/26/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

1
At the end of a hot November day Miss Baines and Mrs. Williams of the Ladies’ Frocks Department at Goode’s were complaining to each other while they changed out of their black frocks before going home.

“Mr. Ryder’s not so bad,” said Miss Baines, in reference to the floor manager; “it’s that Miss Cartright who’s a pain in the neck, excuse my French.”

Miss Cartright was the buyer, and she never seemed to give them a moment’s peace.

Mrs. Williams shrugged and began to powder her nose. “She always gets worse at this time of the year,” she pointed out. “She wants to make sure we earn our Christmas bonus.”

“As if we could help it!” said Miss Baines. “We’re run off our feet!”

Which was quite true: the great festival being now only six weeks away, the crowds of customers were beginning to surge and the frocks to vanish from the rails in an ever-faster flurry, and when Mrs. Williams was washing out her undies in the handbasin that night she had a sudden sensation that her life was slipping away with the rinsing water as it gurgled down the plughole; but she pulled herself together and went on with her chores, while the antipodean summer night throbbed outside all around her.

Mrs. Williams, Patty, and Miss Baines, Fay, worked together with Miss Jacobs on Ladies’ Cocktail Frocks, which was next to Ladies’ Evening Frocks, down at the end of the second floor of Goode’s Department Store in the centre of Sydney. F. G. Goode, a sharp Mancunian, had opened his original Emporium (“Ladies’ and Gents’ Apparel—All the Latest London Modes”) at the end of the last century, and had never looked back, because the people of the colony, he saw straightaway, would spend pretty well all they had in order to convince themselves that they were in the fashion. So now his grandchildren were the principal shareholders in a concern which turned over several million Australian pounds every year, selling the latest London modes, and any modes from other sources which looked likely. Italian modes were in the ascendancy at present. “I got it at Goode’s,” as the caption said, on that insufferable drawing of a superior-looking lady preening herself in a horribly smart new frock before the envious and despairing gaze of her friend—the frocks and the poses might change with the years, but that ad always ran in the bottom left-hand corner of the women’s page in the Herald: I believe the space was booked in perpetuity, and the caption had long since become a city-wide catchphrase. Goode’s stayed ahead of the competition by means of a terrific dedication to the modes. They sent the buying talent abroad for special training at the great department stores of London and New York. When the new season’s clothes came into the shop twice a year the staff worked overtime, pricing and displaying, exclaiming the while.

“Never mind if it does retail at £9.17.6,” said Miss Cartright, “this model will vanish within a fortnight—you mark my words!”

And this they duly did.

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