Blue Skies

by Helen Hodgman

A young wife and mother watches a clock that seems forever stuck at three-in-the-afternoon. Her neighbour obsesses over the front lawn, and the women at the local beach chatter about knitting patterns. Her husband didn’t come home last night.

She lives for Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the baby is with Mother-in-law and she can escape to a less humdrum life. Jonathan, man about town, is Tuesday. Ben, a freethinking artist, is Thursday.

But Jonathan is in serious trouble, and Thursdays are turning sour. Very sour.

A brilliant, acerbic tale of a crack-up in stultifying suburbia, Blue Skies marked the emergence of a unique voice in Australian fiction.

Genres: Australia, Fiction, Tasmania

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1976 round about the time I was enjoying being a young mother myself, Blue Skies tells the story of a young mother marooned in Tasmanian suburbia. I think that if I had read the novel back then, when post-natal depression wasn’t much acknowledged or understood outside psychiatric circles, I wouldn’t have known what to make of it. Rather naïve about the lives of others at that time in my life, and with a preference for British classics, I don’t think I would have understood its incisive black humour, nor the social critique. Blue Skies is a classic example of a book that is right for different times in a reader’s life.

In a short novel of only 153 pages, Hodgman sketches this woman’s life with pitiless precision. She has a kindly-but-dull husband called James, a placid little baby daughter called Angelica, and a neighbour who is obsessive about mowing her lawn.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2013/12/29/bl...

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very witty and clever novel of a young mother going round the bend in 1960s/70s Hobart, Tasmania. Not for you if you require sympathetic characters: almost everyone, the narrator included, is mostrously selfish.

[Text Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Scarily unforgettable.’
Peter Conrad

‘Strange and memorable.’
Eva Hornung

‘The very essence of Tasmanian gothic.’
Carmel Bird

‘Singularly searing and merciless prose.’
Sunday Age

‘Sensuous…Prickly as a sea urchin.’
Nicholas Shakespeare

‘A convincing study of a woman slowly losing her mind.’
Sun Herald

‘Elegantly written, atmospheric.’
Brenda Niall, Australian Book Review

‘Has a masterpiece’s power to thrill and discomfort.’
Sunday Tasmanian
‘As fresh, punchy and relevant now as it was on its [first] release…A compelling vision.’
Australian

‘Stylistically assured…Daring and persuasive in its depiction of a controlled and vengeful anguish.’
Peter Pierce, Sydney Morning Herald

[Jan Hemphill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This delightful novel was first published in 1976. I read it in almost one sitting and it was a joy. I am not like the main character, the narrator, and I have not lived in Tasmania, but each phrase of sun-dried description or moody self-questioning of the new mother, evokes in me a recognition, like seeing an old friend lost over the years. Just a name e.g. Olive, or Gloria, seems to be able to conjure up in me a full picture of that person. The mother-in-law, with a few careful words, is so many grandmothers I have met. The vague and uncertain mixture of the young mother’s loneliness with the bursts of love-making and consideration from her husband draws so economically and vividly the life of the first-time mother.
This familiarity is shaken when surprising twists in the story bring it unexpectedly to a shocking, yet somewhat humorous conclusion.
The poetry of the writing, even though often couched in simple words, builds powerful images: “At the far end of the beach away from the suburb, the bush was thicker and stretched away unbroken, racing away from the houses, gaining strength as the gap widened, building up like a breaking wave, in a thick foaming black line against the darkening sky.” The imaging of the bush edge to the beach as like the line of surf it faces opens my eyes freshly to a common scene and deepens the power of the description.
Other images are delightful and affectionately perceptive. The young mother, pregnant, is“.. stranded on that beach like the poor dumb female turtle I once saw in a film. It had just laid a load of eggs in great distress and difficulty and hadn’t a hope of making it back to the sea…”. This image also hints at the mother’s passage through the story.
There is a startling freshness in writing: “At night, unable to sleep, I would try to calm myself by lying still and counting relentless rows of pleasant little grayish-brown mugs and other bits of improving pottery jumping over fences.” I loved the wry humour, both in the writing and in the vision of the place and people, as if through a (mostly) happy distorting mirror.
I look forward to the re-publication of Hodgman’s other novel.

[Ellemir · Rating 2 out of 5]

The setting and story sounded interesting but I was not able to get into the story. The characters remained either flat or were unappealing. I couldn't identify with any of them or even understand them.
The writing style was good though. I will try another book by this author later.
Maybe the wrong book at the wrong time. Or a book which is too far away from my life and my experiences.

[Jane Routley · Rating 2 out of 5]

A joy to read says The Times review on the cover. Well I didn't find it so. It was easy to read. The writing style is fabulous. but just another story blackly comic I suppose about horrible people doing grim things in the desert of suburbia (a too easy target) Not for me


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[Frankie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a suburban nightmare, and this one is tasmanian to boot. Slightly Wake in Fright for women vibes. I’m going to keep an eye out for a different edition though, this one offends.

[Kanako Okiron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, how it must be grand to be part of the Tasmanian gothic canon and everything associated with it. For one, Björk mentioned the subgenre (that I did not know existed until then, frankly) and its significance in an interview not too long ago. However I'm not sure 'Blue Skies' fits the brief despite its vivid neurotic visual elements, which I liked. I love reading a book and using my senses to make the most of the book's sound and tone, which I certainly got from reading the book. Maybe because I live here, but I could picture walking down the waterfront circa 1970s and popping in and out of TMAG on weekday visits (I've been there far too many times to count). Not sure if this counts as a novella about the highs and lows of being a lactating woman, though: the protagonist certainly made some poor decisions, but there was hardly anything relating to the tumultuousness of pregnancy as supposed in the blurb yet an affair with the married lady's husband while she sleeps in the next room(?) Might have to read this again to ensure I'm not seeing things.

[Randomerde · Rating 4 out of 5]

in solid suburbia creatures of habit share habitat raw earth the cool hearth & soft blows the centre is nowhere to be found only the fringes overpopulate with all manner of eyes serving strange stares glossing unintelligible tongues of course the nether beckons in its quiet assured fecundity

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blue Skies is Helen Hodgman’s debut novel, written in 1976. This edition includes an insightful introduction by Danielle Wood. The setting is 1970’s Tasmanian suburbia. The story is narrated by a young wife and mother who finds herself unable to muster any enthusiasm for the life she and her neighbours are leading. She avoids the daily gathering of mothers and children at the beach by hiding in her home. Her only respite from the despair in her life and the oppression she feels from the relentless blue skies are the days when she leaves her daughter with her mother-in-law and conducts her affairs with Jonathan the restaurateur (Tuesdays) and Ben the artist, her oldest friend’s husband (Thursdays). As events unfold, her perception of the world around her seems increasingly surreal. More and more, she comes across as either vague or selfish. Suspicions the reader has formed about her may be firmed in the final pages.
Hodgman has crafted an extraordinary novel. With an economy of words, her descriptions are vivid and powerful; the atmosphere of 70’s suburbia is brilliantly conveyed; the mood of the narrator is clearly felt. It is easy to see why this Australian classic novel met with high acclaim when it was first published.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a curious book this 1976 debut novel set in Tasmania is. Its unusual, slightly surreal and blackly comic portrait of a woman suffering from postnatal depression in suburbia, where every hour of every day feels like three o'clock in the afternoon is brilliantly done, and the subtle critique on colonialism that Hodgman weaves throughout gives it an added dimension and a real sense of unease. But because the narrator is depressed and so passive most of the time it makes it very hard for the reader to connect with or much care for either her or the other characters.
Unsettling and odd. I'd certainly be interested in reading Hodgman's second novel, 'Jack and Jill'.

[Kris McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure that this is the first novel that I've ever read that is set in Hobart. Thus, it's a real shame that it didn't like it at all. A vacuous and annoying narrator and ludicrous conclusion has a tendency to do that I guess...

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book - a story that had many complex layers to it but was still somehow a very light & easy read.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprising, often uncomfortable story of suburban isolation.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhh my first ebook!!!! It is book #125 for the year