Darkness More Visible

Margot Gorman #2

by Finola Moorhead

When Margot Gorman finds a body in the women’s toilets a tangle of mysteries opens up. Margot Gorman, ex-cop, is now a free agent, a triathlete and has the equivalent of perfect pitch in the sense of smell and, naturally, is a connoisseur of good wine. From murder and kidnap, drug dealing and gay bashing, to illegal mining and an underground network of cyberfeminists – the Solanacites – there are many skeins to be unravelled. A complex and intriguing novel that deals with the selfhood of women, it ranges from musings on the Amazons to a self-sufficient community in Australia’s womenslands. There is mystery and philosophical enquiry in money, madness, motherhood and much more.

650 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Finola Moorhead was born in 1947 in Mornington, Victoria into a Catholic family with Socialist leanings. Raised by a single mother, with two older sisters and a brother, she attended boarding school before applying to the University of Melbourne. After starting a Law degree Finola transferred to the University of Tasmania in the midst of Vietnam War protests, where she was taught by James McAuley and tutored by Margaret Scott. In 1972 Finola attended the Adelaide Writer’s Festival and met renowned authors Judith Wright and Roger McKnight. Inspired, she decided to become a writer herself and upon completing her first story and play, sent them off to The Herald Short Story Competition and The Australian National Playwright’s Conference Competition, both of which she won. Deciding at this point that she preferred writing to teaching, Finola then travelled around Australia spending time with writers such as Dorothy Hewett, before accepting a position on Meanjin magazine, where she worked alongside A.A Phillips and Clem Christesen.

She is a playwright, a poet, has written articles and short stories, and published five books under her own name, as well as appearing in anthologies and journals. Her books include: A Handwritten Modern Classic (1985), Quilt (1985), Remember the Tarantella (1987), Still Murder (1991/2002), Darkness More Visible (2000) and a collection of poetry, My Voice (2006). She is the author of three plays, Curtain Raiser, Horses and It Might As Well Be Loneliness.

Reviews

[Philippa]

Review published in the Otago Gaily Times #28, May-July 2001

Darkness More Visible
Finola Moorhead
(Spinifex, 2000, $34.95)

Reviewed by Philippa Jamieson

The slick cover and blurb of this chunky novel promised a complex and absorbing lesbian detective novel. There was intrigue right from the start, with Margot Gorman, dyke ex-cop turned private eye, discovering a body in the first few pages.
This ambitious, rambling novel is set in coastal Australia (northern New South Wales?) and the story includes a bunch of dykes living on lesbian land, a cross-dressing teenage boy, drugs, cyberconspiracy, and a truckie with unknown, illicit and possibly dangerous cargo.
Within the first 35 pages the author introduces 28 characters, mostly lesbians, and that’s not counting their dogs. Even for a 649-page novel, there were too many characters to keep track of and too many sub-plots. However, the book had plenty of good passages and a momentum that kept me reading.
It’s one of those novels that starts out with seemingly unconnected characters and plots that gradually get entwined as the story progresses. I found it confusing as the threads weren’t woven together satisfactorily. I’m still not sure what on earth Meghan the forensic geologist’s secret role was, and who was siphoning off her money. The cyberconspiracy didn’t seem to go anywhere and didn’t grab me at all. And I didn’t really get the drugs plot either. Who were the baddies? Perhaps if I read it for a second time more might become clear! Cut by about half, with a much tighter structure, Darkness More Visible could be a great novel.