Indelible Ink

Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2011 AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD/ pbSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2011 WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PREMIER'S BOOK AWARDS/b SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2011 BARBARA JEFFERIS AWARD Marie King is fifty-nine, recently divorced, and has lived a rather conventional life on Sydney’s affluent north shore. Now her three children have moved out, the family home is to be sold, and with it will go her beloved garden. On a drunken whim, Marie gets a tattoo — an act that gives way to an unexpected friendship with her tattoo artist, Rhys. Before long, Rhys has introduced Marie to a side of the city that clashes with her staid north-shore milieu. Her children are mortified by their mother’s transformation, but have their own challenges to deal with: workplace politics; love affairs old and new; and, of course, the real-estate market. Written with Fiona McGregor’s incisive wit and keen eye, Indelible Ink uses one family as a microcosm for the changes operating in society at large. In its piercing examination of the way we live now, it is truly a novel for our times. PRAISE FOR FIONA MCGREGOR ‘This is a terrific “way-we-live-now” novel filled with anxieties about rising house prices, over-development and careers and marriages going nowhere. Verdict: absorbing.’ The Herald Sun ‘The best domestic novels use characters in a specific family or social setting to reflect and explore the values and issues of a particular time and place. Indelible Ink, which follows the intersecting lives of one Sydney family during the last days of the Howard era, is such a book — and looks set to be the most talked-about Australian novel since The Slap.’ Australian Book Review