Madeleine St John was, until recently, one of those Australian writers more recognised overseas than in her home country. She was shortlisted for the Booker in 1997, yet few Australians knew her name until recently.
A Stairway to Paradise is classic Madeleine St John: poignant, witty, full of sharp and subtle observations.
Alex and Andrew are friends. Barbara, an aimless young woman working as a nanny, has moved in to Claire and Alex Maclise’s house to care for their two children while Claire is away on a business trip. A lesser novelist would spend pages waxing lyrical about Barbara’s growing attraction to Alex, with whom she is destined to have an affair. St John does it in four lines of dialogue: Barbara talking to the housekeeper.
‘If you could find the time to iron Mr Rochester’s shirts,’ she said to Mrs Brick, ‘it would be such a help.’
‘Mr Rochester?’ said Mrs Brick.
‘Oh, God,’ said Barbara. ‘I must be dreaming. Sorry. I mean Mr Maclise of course. Goodness!’
‘It’s those kiddies addling your brain,’ said Mrs Brick. ‘Kiddies do that to you. You wait until you have your own. Mr Rochester’s the least of it.’
The ‘kiddies’ in this book are wonderfully drawn, funny little people. I can almost feel St John laughing as she wrote them: ‘Nothing so thin, so pale, so stick-like as a little boy. He seemed to be made of wire, his cranium full of tiny wheels and rods all turning, endlessly turning, producing their endless stream of speculations and conclusions, notes and queries’. Fergus, the ‘fiend in human form’ who distracts Barbara from her troubles, is delightful and energetic.
‘What would I do without you, Fergus?’ said Barbara.
‘You’d be in really bad trouble,’ said he.
Here is the eternal triangle. Three characters caught up in a complicated and ultimately unsatisfying tangle of desires and emotional commitments. Unable to articulate the precise quality of their longing and dissatisfaction, they struggle with loss and alienation as they seek to find meaning in their lives. ( )