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Iris
Who is Iris Webber?
A thief, a fighter, a wife, a lover.
A scammer, a schemer, a friend.
A musician, a worker, a big-hearted fool.
A woman who has prevailed against the toughest gangsters of the day, defying police time and again, yet is now trapped in a prison cell.
Guilty or innocent?
Rollicking through the underbelly of 1930s sly-grog Sydney, Iris is a dazzling literary achievement from one of Australia's finest writers. Based on actual events and set in an era of cataclysmic change, here is a fierce, fascinating tale of a woman who couldn't be held back.
A thief, a fighter, a wife, a lover.
A scammer, a schemer, a friend.
A musician, a worker, a big-hearted fool.
A woman who has prevailed against the toughest gangsters of the day, defying police time and again, yet is now trapped in a prison cell.
Guilty or innocent?
Rollicking through the underbelly of 1930s sly-grog Sydney, Iris is a dazzling literary achievement from one of Australia's finest writers. Based on actual events and set in an era of cataclysmic change, here is a fierce, fascinating tale of a woman who couldn't be held back.
464 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
September 19, 2023
4.5★
“This is how life has always ensued, as a series of events determined by others that rides over her like a tram. All she can do is lie there.
. . .
Mrs McLennan, can you tell the court what happened the morning of Friday the 8th of October?
. . .
Iris feels humiliated by her stale sandwich and tepid tea. She remembers how grateful she was for the food on Friday, admiring how neatly it was cut.
. . .
Roach pulls out his watch. Right-ho, he says. We start again at one thirty. And off he goes to his counter lunch. To his patch of sun in the public bar, to his beer and cigarettes and the racing pages of The Arrow. In his nice pinstriped suit, handkerchief neatly folded by his wife that morning, inserted into the top pocket with a little pat and a Have a good day, darling. Will you be home for dinner?”
Iris was in gaol, waiting to go back into court. Roach was her lawyer. I don’t even remember which incarceration or court appearance this was – there were so many. Only the actual court scenes are written in the third person about the very real Iris Webber.
She was well known in the criminal underworld of Sydney in the 1930s, having started off as a domestic servant (briefly), then gradually descending and ascending through prostitution, shoplifting (‘tealeafing’=thieving), and countless scams. The tricks and lurks are fascinating. But she didn’t start in Sydney.
“I was born in Bathurst in the Salvation Army Women’s Home. My mother Marge had been doing a stretch for larceny in Cooma Gaol. She was a servant for a publican, she would’ve known his family ’cause she was born in Adaminaby. They said she stole two rings and five pounds, Ma said they fitted her ’cause the publican’s wife was jealous. My mother was beautiful then she always said, with dark wavy hair that took one hundred strokes to brush, it was that thick and long. She would’ve got knocked up with me just before going inside. They let her out early for the birth.
She went up to Glen Innes after having me ’cause she wanted a fresh start.”
That’s how the story sounds in her own voice. She grew up in Glen Innes, a small country town in northern NSW, and speaks often of Kwong Sing’s Emporium, the department store that is still there (and in which I sometimes shopped, back in the day). That certainly made it feel like history for me, personally.
She went rabbit-hunting with her stepfather, got married young, worked as a domestic servant, and developed an eye for the fine cutlery and finishings in the grand house where she worked. When she moved to Sydney, I recognised those areas too.
She uses a lot of Depression-era slang and lives in such primitive conditions that it feels like a century earlier – rats running in the streets, filth in the gutters, and starving families.
She speaks freely of prostitution, Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh (real women who owned brothels and sly grog shops), and how surprised she was to fall in love with another woman, eventually giving up men altogether (except as clients).
“You got a new fella?
Who needs a bloke when all he does is bludge n bash?
To act as a shield against the others. That way you only cop it once.”
Being a “sexual deviationist” was a particularly loathsome crime, back then, so not having a man even just as cover, left Iris vulnerable to everyone. Everybody hated them, except for their own who gathered often to drink and dance.
She got herself a little accordion, taught herself to play, and made a few coins here and there as a busker – also illegal and also made for an easy arrest for the police if she wasn’t quick enough to escape.
She was pretty handy with a rifle, which was a good thing, or she wouldn’t have survived. But of course, shooting people puts her back in gaol.
It is pretty full-on, with rough and ready language. There is no way to soften Iris or her life or her friends, but the fierce loyalty they sometimes have for each other is easily felt.
You’ll note the lack of quotation marks, and if you read it, you will be looking for a glossary (hello Google) to find out what bidgee and other words are. Bidgee is an alcoholic blend of cheap wine, methylated spirits, sugar, raisins, and bootpolish for colour – or so my rabbithole dive tells me.
It is a first-rate depiction of the people and the times, and there are some wonderfully atmospheric descriptions as well. I did find it slow-moving, which doesn’t seem possible, but I think it’s because so much of what Iris did was repetitive, and this is written as a history as much as it is a novel, trying to fit so much detail in.
I’d have preferred it shorter and with a glossary, but it’s awfully, realistically excellent and deserves the reputation it is gaining.
“This is how life has always ensued, as a series of events determined by others that rides over her like a tram. All she can do is lie there.
. . .
Mrs McLennan, can you tell the court what happened the morning of Friday the 8th of October?
. . .
Iris feels humiliated by her stale sandwich and tepid tea. She remembers how grateful she was for the food on Friday, admiring how neatly it was cut.
. . .
Roach pulls out his watch. Right-ho, he says. We start again at one thirty. And off he goes to his counter lunch. To his patch of sun in the public bar, to his beer and cigarettes and the racing pages of The Arrow. In his nice pinstriped suit, handkerchief neatly folded by his wife that morning, inserted into the top pocket with a little pat and a Have a good day, darling. Will you be home for dinner?”
Iris was in gaol, waiting to go back into court. Roach was her lawyer. I don’t even remember which incarceration or court appearance this was – there were so many. Only the actual court scenes are written in the third person about the very real Iris Webber.
She was well known in the criminal underworld of Sydney in the 1930s, having started off as a domestic servant (briefly), then gradually descending and ascending through prostitution, shoplifting (‘tealeafing’=thieving), and countless scams. The tricks and lurks are fascinating. But she didn’t start in Sydney.
“I was born in Bathurst in the Salvation Army Women’s Home. My mother Marge had been doing a stretch for larceny in Cooma Gaol. She was a servant for a publican, she would’ve known his family ’cause she was born in Adaminaby. They said she stole two rings and five pounds, Ma said they fitted her ’cause the publican’s wife was jealous. My mother was beautiful then she always said, with dark wavy hair that took one hundred strokes to brush, it was that thick and long. She would’ve got knocked up with me just before going inside. They let her out early for the birth.
She went up to Glen Innes after having me ’cause she wanted a fresh start.”
That’s how the story sounds in her own voice. She grew up in Glen Innes, a small country town in northern NSW, and speaks often of Kwong Sing’s Emporium, the department store that is still there (and in which I sometimes shopped, back in the day). That certainly made it feel like history for me, personally.
She went rabbit-hunting with her stepfather, got married young, worked as a domestic servant, and developed an eye for the fine cutlery and finishings in the grand house where she worked. When she moved to Sydney, I recognised those areas too.
She uses a lot of Depression-era slang and lives in such primitive conditions that it feels like a century earlier – rats running in the streets, filth in the gutters, and starving families.
She speaks freely of prostitution, Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh (real women who owned brothels and sly grog shops), and how surprised she was to fall in love with another woman, eventually giving up men altogether (except as clients).
“You got a new fella?
Who needs a bloke when all he does is bludge n bash?
To act as a shield against the others. That way you only cop it once.”
Being a “sexual deviationist” was a particularly loathsome crime, back then, so not having a man even just as cover, left Iris vulnerable to everyone. Everybody hated them, except for their own who gathered often to drink and dance.
She got herself a little accordion, taught herself to play, and made a few coins here and there as a busker – also illegal and also made for an easy arrest for the police if she wasn’t quick enough to escape.
She was pretty handy with a rifle, which was a good thing, or she wouldn’t have survived. But of course, shooting people puts her back in gaol.
It is pretty full-on, with rough and ready language. There is no way to soften Iris or her life or her friends, but the fierce loyalty they sometimes have for each other is easily felt.
You’ll note the lack of quotation marks, and if you read it, you will be looking for a glossary (hello Google) to find out what bidgee and other words are. Bidgee is an alcoholic blend of cheap wine, methylated spirits, sugar, raisins, and bootpolish for colour – or so my rabbithole dive tells me.
It is a first-rate depiction of the people and the times, and there are some wonderfully atmospheric descriptions as well. I did find it slow-moving, which doesn’t seem possible, but I think it’s because so much of what Iris did was repetitive, and this is written as a history as much as it is a novel, trying to fit so much detail in.
I’d have preferred it shorter and with a glossary, but it’s awfully, realistically excellent and deserves the reputation it is gaining.
November 5, 2022
This book transports the reader to the violent and unkind streets of 1930s Sydney. It feels fully immersive. It’s also a celebration of language and the vernacular spoken at that time. I loved figuring out what all the terms meant and sinking my teeth into the dialogue. Iris is vividly memorable and she’s the kind of character who leaps off the page and starts to live in your mind. She’s scrappy and a fighter (and a lover). I would not have lasted long on the streets of 1930s Sydney.
January 10, 2023
Kudos to McGregor for all her hard work, she has really dived deep into 1930's Sydney.
This review is just my personal take, I can't get into it, the language, whilst authentic, I found difficult, and didn't understand some of the vernacular (and I was born in Sydney), a glossary would have helped (as one other reviewer suggested).
Also the layout of the speech, it's not in parentheses and blends into the descriptive text at times. I found this a little disorientating.
This review is just my personal take, I can't get into it, the language, whilst authentic, I found difficult, and didn't understand some of the vernacular (and I was born in Sydney), a glossary would have helped (as one other reviewer suggested).
Also the layout of the speech, it's not in parentheses and blends into the descriptive text at times. I found this a little disorientating.
January 29, 2023
I really wanted to read this book but got 30% in and gave up.
The writing style was not for me which is a shame because the story of Iris and 1930's Sydney had so much potential.
The writing style was not for me which is a shame because the story of Iris and 1930's Sydney had so much potential.
February 17, 2023
Interesting insights into crime in 1950s Sydney - but it got quite bogged down in the minutiae of the crime gangs & events at the time. I couldn't keep track of the numerous characters, who was in which gang & who did what to whom. Hence some events made little sense to me. I felt that the author tried to make the novel into a biography rather than an interesting story. It would be a more interesting story with some tighter editing ...
Read
April 2, 2025well done in terms of historical writing, mid plot
January 6, 2024
It was a good story, just a little long.
Read
November 3, 2022Eighty years before Ice-T, Australian author Louis Stone observed that we should hate, not the player, but the game. “Yer talk about me bein’ cruel and callous. It’s the game that’s cruel, not me”, declared the titular character of Stone’s 1911 debut (and defining work), Jonah.
The quote forms one of two epigraphs introducing readers to Iris Webber, a real-life petty criminal reputed to be “the most violent woman in Sydney”. Twice married, twice charged with murder, she made her living as a busker, thief and sly-grogger. Arriving in Sydney from Glen Innes in October, 1932, a woman asks her: “Here on holidays?” Her reply is simply, “I’m here to live.”
It’s a life without much time for it: compare the protagonist of McGregor’s 2010 novel, Indelible Ink, which won the Age Book of the Year award, residing in Sydney among the middle-class, a woman whose experience of the margins – barely touching the sides – comes only after acquiring a taste for tattoos. (The family are horrified, her children aghast.) Iris, on the other hand, is born marginalised. She does not live in the city – she survives it.
Stepping into Central Station, surveilling the “sawtooth skyline” and arches “like a cathedral, light streaming in through its high vaulted roof”, she takes us through the River Styx of 1930s Darlinghurst and Sydney’s Dionysian inferno, her voice that of a rambunctious cicerone’s: eager, conversational, braggadocious, impatient to commune and to confide – and unflaggingly intimate.
As narrative, Iris is lark and antic and breathless, animated with capriccio and dash. (Intervals of sex and violence see the punctuation vanish, as if ashamed to admit that anything might be slowed down for the reader.) Along with Patrick White, Jen Craig and Julie Janson, McGregor is one of our foremost cartographers of settler Sydney.
Here is Iris observing Central Station at the novel’s opening: “An old man staggered past with his pants falling down, bronza on full display [...] A woman sat on a butterbox with a bawling baby on her lap and a toddler next to her, muttering Spare change? [...] Fellas humping their blueys into town every day, looking for work.” Alliteration doubles as ethnography, a plenitude of linguistic and cultural artefacts: bronza, bloody load of bullo, butter box, bluey (and, as Iris tells a woman with an educated accent and a penchant for port: “I reckon yer a banana bender”).
In her essay The Hot Desk, McGregor wrote about the diminished presence of White Australian settler slang. The concern dates back to her debut, in which the Australian protagonist, accosted by Americans in Savoie, France (“Yo! Crocodile Dundee! Chuck another shrimp on the barbie, mate!“), worries about her ties to “the land of beef and sheep”, her layers of accent “like a millefeuille cake”.
Read on:
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
The quote forms one of two epigraphs introducing readers to Iris Webber, a real-life petty criminal reputed to be “the most violent woman in Sydney”. Twice married, twice charged with murder, she made her living as a busker, thief and sly-grogger. Arriving in Sydney from Glen Innes in October, 1932, a woman asks her: “Here on holidays?” Her reply is simply, “I’m here to live.”
It’s a life without much time for it: compare the protagonist of McGregor’s 2010 novel, Indelible Ink, which won the Age Book of the Year award, residing in Sydney among the middle-class, a woman whose experience of the margins – barely touching the sides – comes only after acquiring a taste for tattoos. (The family are horrified, her children aghast.) Iris, on the other hand, is born marginalised. She does not live in the city – she survives it.
Stepping into Central Station, surveilling the “sawtooth skyline” and arches “like a cathedral, light streaming in through its high vaulted roof”, she takes us through the River Styx of 1930s Darlinghurst and Sydney’s Dionysian inferno, her voice that of a rambunctious cicerone’s: eager, conversational, braggadocious, impatient to commune and to confide – and unflaggingly intimate.
As narrative, Iris is lark and antic and breathless, animated with capriccio and dash. (Intervals of sex and violence see the punctuation vanish, as if ashamed to admit that anything might be slowed down for the reader.) Along with Patrick White, Jen Craig and Julie Janson, McGregor is one of our foremost cartographers of settler Sydney.
Here is Iris observing Central Station at the novel’s opening: “An old man staggered past with his pants falling down, bronza on full display [...] A woman sat on a butterbox with a bawling baby on her lap and a toddler next to her, muttering Spare change? [...] Fellas humping their blueys into town every day, looking for work.” Alliteration doubles as ethnography, a plenitude of linguistic and cultural artefacts: bronza, bloody load of bullo, butter box, bluey (and, as Iris tells a woman with an educated accent and a penchant for port: “I reckon yer a banana bender”).
In her essay The Hot Desk, McGregor wrote about the diminished presence of White Australian settler slang. The concern dates back to her debut, in which the Australian protagonist, accosted by Americans in Savoie, France (“Yo! Crocodile Dundee! Chuck another shrimp on the barbie, mate!“), worries about her ties to “the land of beef and sheep”, her layers of accent “like a millefeuille cake”.
Read on:
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
October 29, 2023
3.5 stars. An overly long, detailed, interesting, sad account of the life of Iris Webber, describing her life from 1930 to 1937 in the country at Glenn Innes and then when Iris moved to Sydney to find work during the depression. Iris was married to Ned for seven years. They had no children. Ned became increasingly abusive and Iris eventually left him to move to Sydney.
In Sydney Iris became a prostitute after being met at the train station by a manager of prostitutes. Iris parties hard, finding herself in another relationship with an abusive, violent man.
The novel begins with Iris being on trial for murdering a man in 1937. The story switches from the present to the past continuously. We learn of Iris’s history. She is a shoplifter, a fighter, housekeeper, busker, (she learns to play the accordion), imprisoned for short periods of time, mainly for busking without a license and for abusive language. Many of Iris’s friends in Sydney do short periods of jail time for shoplifting, soliciting and using abusive language.
A gritty, interesting account of the seedy side of life in Sydney city during the 1930s. The period between 1935 to 1937 is described throughout the novel, covering Iris’s life, month by month. Whilst the reader certainly gains a very good insight into Iris’s life, a little less detail would have made for a more satisfying reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin Award.
In Sydney Iris became a prostitute after being met at the train station by a manager of prostitutes. Iris parties hard, finding herself in another relationship with an abusive, violent man.
The novel begins with Iris being on trial for murdering a man in 1937. The story switches from the present to the past continuously. We learn of Iris’s history. She is a shoplifter, a fighter, housekeeper, busker, (she learns to play the accordion), imprisoned for short periods of time, mainly for busking without a license and for abusive language. Many of Iris’s friends in Sydney do short periods of jail time for shoplifting, soliciting and using abusive language.
A gritty, interesting account of the seedy side of life in Sydney city during the 1930s. The period between 1935 to 1937 is described throughout the novel, covering Iris’s life, month by month. Whilst the reader certainly gains a very good insight into Iris’s life, a little less detail would have made for a more satisfying reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin Award.
February 22, 2023
Iris is an historical novel based on the life of Sydney underworld figure, Iris Webber. It gave me look into the hard realities faced by women living in poverty in Sydney in the 1920s and 30s. It is well researched and vividly detailed, told in the vernacular of the time. I felt like the last 3rd of the novel wanted a bit of editing. A lot of the detail, though fascinating, wasn't necessary for the story.
March 27, 2023
"I’d heard this a million times before, the standard dream of tarts getting off the game as though they hadn’t already been married and had it turn out more of a nightmare."
This is one of those books you don't entirely leave until days after you've finished it. It's not short, so be prepared to walk around for a while as if your consciousness is Surry Hills between the wars, and the rest of you is just going through the paces. And you want to live there, because Iris is so compelling - the book and the character. This woman who is extraordinary simply by dint of choosing not to be ordinary, to try, and often but not always fail, to carve out space to live on her terms. Even if the carving is done with a literal knife. Iris is no intellectual feminist, but she is a woman who wants to live without the abuse that comes with male dependency, in a world which has no space for that. Iris' emotional arc is never simplified: she gains strength, but also loses hope as the novel winds on. This is an ode to surviving, to, as Iris would say "living", but it doesn't romanticise lack of options either.
In addition to Iris, the world of the inner city slums near Central is vividly, gorgeously, brought to life. A world in which women rule, but still need men around to legitimise them. A world in which sex work is normal but oral sex is a perversion, in which loyalty is the highest attribute unless you're the boss in which case it's bad for business (some things haven't changed). Iris lives in a broken down terrace where your neighbours are your intimates, hustles in the poo lane, shoplifts in the fancy new department stores, plays her accordion to "roll out the barrel", falls in love to swing. It’s subtly visceral - monthlies are a regular impediment, prossies debate the hygiene of having a toilet inside your dwelling, and police beat downs break bones.
The book can be hard to read at times - McGregor eschews quotation marks, bringing us closer to Iris as thoughts blur into speech. There is no glossary - this is emphatically not marketed for an international pick-up - which adds to the sensation of having been plunged into this ribald, gutsy, stinky world. And on that, this is a research heavy book - you are never lectured, but there's definitely historically-interesting-but-extraneous-to-the-main-event content in there. Iris meanderings are often explictly mapped out for us - she is puffed out (or conversely, happily sauntering downhill) in geographically flawless ways. I, like millions, know these streets well enough to follow and imagine. I have no idea how resonant the book would be for those unfamiliar with Darlo and Surry. (It is impossible, I suspect, not to speculate how many millions that broken down terrace would fetch today…)
This is one of my highlights of the year so far - I'm on a good reading streak at the moment. It's one of around half a dozen of the Stella longlist I have read, and so far, this is one of the strongest years yet. I am hoping much of those I haven't read are duds* so the shortlist has my favourites on it!
*this is a joke.
This is one of those books you don't entirely leave until days after you've finished it. It's not short, so be prepared to walk around for a while as if your consciousness is Surry Hills between the wars, and the rest of you is just going through the paces. And you want to live there, because Iris is so compelling - the book and the character. This woman who is extraordinary simply by dint of choosing not to be ordinary, to try, and often but not always fail, to carve out space to live on her terms. Even if the carving is done with a literal knife. Iris is no intellectual feminist, but she is a woman who wants to live without the abuse that comes with male dependency, in a world which has no space for that. Iris' emotional arc is never simplified: she gains strength, but also loses hope as the novel winds on. This is an ode to surviving, to, as Iris would say "living", but it doesn't romanticise lack of options either.
In addition to Iris, the world of the inner city slums near Central is vividly, gorgeously, brought to life. A world in which women rule, but still need men around to legitimise them. A world in which sex work is normal but oral sex is a perversion, in which loyalty is the highest attribute unless you're the boss in which case it's bad for business (some things haven't changed). Iris lives in a broken down terrace where your neighbours are your intimates, hustles in the poo lane, shoplifts in the fancy new department stores, plays her accordion to "roll out the barrel", falls in love to swing. It’s subtly visceral - monthlies are a regular impediment, prossies debate the hygiene of having a toilet inside your dwelling, and police beat downs break bones.
The book can be hard to read at times - McGregor eschews quotation marks, bringing us closer to Iris as thoughts blur into speech. There is no glossary - this is emphatically not marketed for an international pick-up - which adds to the sensation of having been plunged into this ribald, gutsy, stinky world. And on that, this is a research heavy book - you are never lectured, but there's definitely historically-interesting-but-extraneous-to-the-main-event content in there. Iris meanderings are often explictly mapped out for us - she is puffed out (or conversely, happily sauntering downhill) in geographically flawless ways. I, like millions, know these streets well enough to follow and imagine. I have no idea how resonant the book would be for those unfamiliar with Darlo and Surry. (It is impossible, I suspect, not to speculate how many millions that broken down terrace would fetch today…)
This is one of my highlights of the year so far - I'm on a good reading streak at the moment. It's one of around half a dozen of the Stella longlist I have read, and so far, this is one of the strongest years yet. I am hoping much of those I haven't read are duds* so the shortlist has my favourites on it!
*this is a joke.
January 20, 2023
While this book makes a genuine effort to detail the seamier side of Sydney in the 1930s I felt it had major structural deficiencies. It was repetitive and laboured taking a long time to outline and rehash what was clearly a tale of sad and problematic times. It could have been at least 150 pages shorter and told the same story much more effectively.
July 23, 2024
One of the most interesting experiences I had while reading Iris was that despite it taking place in 1930s Sydney, the inequality between the rich and the poor was of such a similar vein that is experienced today. A country that is still in the grips of domestic violence. A hundred years and how much has truly changed?
Told in past, present and future, Iris covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. A rough childhood, a disappointing gambler of a husband, picked straight from the train in Sydney by a madam and put to work, in and out of gaol, violence, drugs and criminality and a life scratched out of that hardness.
It took awhile for me to get into a rhythm to read this book, there’s no parenthesis to indicated speech and it’s written with an eye for the vernacular at the time (a glossary would have been handy for some of the terms, it took me the longest time to pick up that ~angie~ was actually cocaine) but it was an engaging read and most of this has to do with the character of Iris. Though based on a real figure, most of what McGregor has written is fictional as we don’t know much about Iris as a person. With little McGregor has painted a very vivid picture of a woman used to having very little and keen to assert herself. It’s a journey that we slowly witness Iris’s hope of a decent future erode away with time. Friends murdered, disfigured, in gaol, or just generally lost. Not even busking is immune from a police bashing. Complex relationships are rife.
This was probably more of a three and half star read for me but I’ll round up just for the sheer amount of work and research the author has clearly put in. I was so enmeshed in Iris' story that I googled her to find out a bit more about the rest of her life.
Told in past, present and future, Iris covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. A rough childhood, a disappointing gambler of a husband, picked straight from the train in Sydney by a madam and put to work, in and out of gaol, violence, drugs and criminality and a life scratched out of that hardness.
It took awhile for me to get into a rhythm to read this book, there’s no parenthesis to indicated speech and it’s written with an eye for the vernacular at the time (a glossary would have been handy for some of the terms, it took me the longest time to pick up that ~angie~ was actually cocaine) but it was an engaging read and most of this has to do with the character of Iris. Though based on a real figure, most of what McGregor has written is fictional as we don’t know much about Iris as a person. With little McGregor has painted a very vivid picture of a woman used to having very little and keen to assert herself. It’s a journey that we slowly witness Iris’s hope of a decent future erode away with time. Friends murdered, disfigured, in gaol, or just generally lost. Not even busking is immune from a police bashing. Complex relationships are rife.
This was probably more of a three and half star read for me but I’ll round up just for the sheer amount of work and research the author has clearly put in. I was so enmeshed in Iris' story that I googled her to find out a bit more about the rest of her life.
March 30, 2023
(not quite a 3) Although I greatly admired the research that went into McGregor's historical novel, I struggled to finish it. Her recreation of "the underbelly of 1930s sly-grog Sydney" {back cover}, a 10 year dedication, skilfully presented the sounds, sights and rhythm of life on the city streets, of lives lived on the edge, of lives marked by poverty, disadvantage, and crime. Readers came to know Iris Webber intimately through the meticulous recounting of her criminal dealings, her personal attachments and cunning, bringing this historical character to life. Her experiences with the police and her frequent incarceration were recorded so vividly that I often felt I was with her in these situations.
The feature of McGregor's writing was in her use of the vernacular of the times. However, this was also most confusing for me, to the extent that I often lost the thread of her storytelling because of my confusion in her wording. Her characters spoke with the authenticity of 1930s Sydney, but I found this ultimately tedious. Her plotline jumped back and forth between time periods, also adding to my confusion. Some will consider this novel nothing short of brilliant. And, although I can understand why, I found that I was never confident I understood what was happening or what her characters were talking about.
The feature of McGregor's writing was in her use of the vernacular of the times. However, this was also most confusing for me, to the extent that I often lost the thread of her storytelling because of my confusion in her wording. Her characters spoke with the authenticity of 1930s Sydney, but I found this ultimately tedious. Her plotline jumped back and forth between time periods, also adding to my confusion. Some will consider this novel nothing short of brilliant. And, although I can understand why, I found that I was never confident I understood what was happening or what her characters were talking about.
December 6, 2023
I’m finding this a hard review to write because, much as I admire the book, I am not going to finish it. It is obviously meticulously researched and beautifully written. It transports the reader to the vermin-infested, crime-ridden, poorest suburbs of 1930s Sydney. But, for me, it is overly long, showing us the same things many times - poverty leading to crime, mostly involving sex, drugs and theft; police brutality; imprisonment; and women - of course, as they were - mostly as victims, of misogyny, abuse and violence. I think it could have had the same impact as a slightly shorter book. I also began to find the vast array of characters and their complex dynamics confusing, but that could just be due to my elderly brain! So … I’ve skipped ahead, I know what happens, and I’m leaving 100 pages unread.
July 16, 2024
This was possibly one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time. It was by no means a traditional story. The author took real life characters from the criminal world of 1930's Sydney, did an impressive amount of research to build a framework and then created a fictional story within as to how she would have liked to see their personal interactions unfold.
Our titular character, Iris Webber, was larger than life. She was a woman trying to live in a world that was poor and dangerous. She was called "the most violent woman in Sydney", but we learn all of her actions were about her survival, safety and the survival and safety of her friends.
Iris had many jobs. She was a prostitute, thief, busker with her accordion, grog seller and fierce friend. She ended up in gaol for many of the aforementioned careers, along with being a “sexual deviationist” (something that was a crime that could put you in prison time during those days), wounding and eventually murder.
After no luck with men in both personal and professional life she ended up unexpectedly falling for her friend and fellow prostitute Maisie Matthews. After a while she became known as a local "pervert" (the wonderfully kind name they gave to anyone who was gay/lesbian 😠) and struggled internally with the idea of what is right, wrong or normal. As the story goes on she gets more comfortable with being happy within herself and accepting the path of love she is on. This however is not the same for Maisie, and this will eventually be how Iris ends up charged with murder.
The narrative itself was fascinating. Fiona McGregor has written the novel in the language of the time. Having listened to this on audiobook I believe made my experience of the story so much better as I feel like a physical read would have been hard and confusing at times. The sections where we are at court with Iris were written in 3rd person and were the most accurate parts of the story to tie the authors fiction together.
I thoroughly enjoyed Iris and will be keeping an eye on Fiona McGregor for future work. I won't be forgetting Iris Webber anytime soon!!
Our titular character, Iris Webber, was larger than life. She was a woman trying to live in a world that was poor and dangerous. She was called "the most violent woman in Sydney", but we learn all of her actions were about her survival, safety and the survival and safety of her friends.
Iris had many jobs. She was a prostitute, thief, busker with her accordion, grog seller and fierce friend. She ended up in gaol for many of the aforementioned careers, along with being a “sexual deviationist” (something that was a crime that could put you in prison time during those days), wounding and eventually murder.
After no luck with men in both personal and professional life she ended up unexpectedly falling for her friend and fellow prostitute Maisie Matthews. After a while she became known as a local "pervert" (the wonderfully kind name they gave to anyone who was gay/lesbian 😠) and struggled internally with the idea of what is right, wrong or normal. As the story goes on she gets more comfortable with being happy within herself and accepting the path of love she is on. This however is not the same for Maisie, and this will eventually be how Iris ends up charged with murder.
The narrative itself was fascinating. Fiona McGregor has written the novel in the language of the time. Having listened to this on audiobook I believe made my experience of the story so much better as I feel like a physical read would have been hard and confusing at times. The sections where we are at court with Iris were written in 3rd person and were the most accurate parts of the story to tie the authors fiction together.
I thoroughly enjoyed Iris and will be keeping an eye on Fiona McGregor for future work. I won't be forgetting Iris Webber anytime soon!!
December 21, 2022
Fiona Kelly McGregor is, according to her website a cross-disciplinary author, artist and critic who writes novels, essays, articles and reviews. Some readers will know her as a performance artist, but most notably as the author of Indelible Ink (2010) which won the Age Book of the Year. (See my review.) Her previous fiction also includes Strange Museums (2008); Chemical Palace (2002); Suck My Toes (1994), short stories re-issued by Scribe as the ebook Dirt (2013) along with the novel Au Pair (1993) which I read and enjoyed before I started this blog or (alas) even a reading journal. She was named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists in 1997.
Mcgregor's website tells me that this new novel Iris, is the first in a duet of novels based on the life of real-life Iris Webber:
So the 448 pages that I've just read is but the first instalment of prodigious research for McGregor's doctoral thesis!
(Mercifully) the novel doesn't read like a thesis. Written in a profusion of short vivid sentences, peppered with (a-hem) lively language and authentic slang of the era, it tells the story of a woman who was a survivor, but whose survival was always only tentative. And while Iris comes across as a woman determined to be in charge of her life, I came to the end of the novel feeling melancholy because her life was so compromised by crime as a solution to extreme poverty. She and her friends were constantly in and out of gaol for both petty crime and on remand for more serious crimes, and the 'Refty' was a brutal place. A very brutal place, where Iris was often cold, hungry, and recovering without medical attention for the beatings that had been dished out to her.
In a life characterised by insecurity in all the things that matter (shelter, income, safety, dignity) it was the insecurity of her friendships that seemed most tragic to me.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/12/21/i...
Mcgregor's website tells me that this new novel Iris, is the first in a duet of novels based on the life of real-life Iris Webber:
a petty criminal active in Sydney’s sly-grog underworld from the 1930s-1950s. Set 1932-37, Iris is an epic and picaresque ride through inner-city slums; a doomed love story peopled with scammers, gangsters and thieves. It’s an interrogation of how society criminalises its most marginalised people.
So the 448 pages that I've just read is but the first instalment of prodigious research for McGregor's doctoral thesis!
(Mercifully) the novel doesn't read like a thesis. Written in a profusion of short vivid sentences, peppered with (a-hem) lively language and authentic slang of the era, it tells the story of a woman who was a survivor, but whose survival was always only tentative. And while Iris comes across as a woman determined to be in charge of her life, I came to the end of the novel feeling melancholy because her life was so compromised by crime as a solution to extreme poverty. She and her friends were constantly in and out of gaol for both petty crime and on remand for more serious crimes, and the 'Refty' was a brutal place. A very brutal place, where Iris was often cold, hungry, and recovering without medical attention for the beatings that had been dished out to her.
In a life characterised by insecurity in all the things that matter (shelter, income, safety, dignity) it was the insecurity of her friendships that seemed most tragic to me.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/12/21/i...
June 24, 2024
3/5
After much debate I’m rounding up to a 3.
The book itself was difficult to read and at times to understand. I found myself zoning out or getting lost amidst the slang, lingo and various characters and connections.
The storyline was actually super interesting (what I could process). This is definitely a long haul read, where you’re getting a past and present account of events.
I genuinely find the history of Australian crime interesting but the writing format made this book challenging and hard to engage in at times.
After much debate I’m rounding up to a 3.
The book itself was difficult to read and at times to understand. I found myself zoning out or getting lost amidst the slang, lingo and various characters and connections.
The storyline was actually super interesting (what I could process). This is definitely a long haul read, where you’re getting a past and present account of events.
I genuinely find the history of Australian crime interesting but the writing format made this book challenging and hard to engage in at times.
June 25, 2023
Without doubt one of the most incredible books I’ve ever read. Iris is heartbreaking, hilarious, fascinating and shocking in equal measure. The attention to detail and amazing characters are second to none, and the book is fully immersive. I genuinely couldn’t put it down! If you have any interest in Australian history, particularly the the rough slum life of Sydney and the ‘razor gang wars’ in the 1930s, as well as LGBTIQA+ history, this is unmissable.
March 23, 2023
This was fantastic. Truly. To have the skill and attention to detail to be able to write era specific language and colloquialism like this is genuinely astonishingly good. I think it was a bit long and, being about real people, lacked the kind of narrative thrust that might make this a page turner. It was also unexpectedly (and graphically) erotic. Which is not a criticism. Just… surprising. Overall I really loved it and it made me want to know even more about the era and the characters depicted within.
July 2, 2023
Loved getting totally immersed in iris's world - brutal, dirty, unforgiving, with moments of transcendence.
May 18, 2023
dnfd. just couldn't do it.
July 4, 2024
Firstly, I absolutely do not have the constitution to survive a single day in 1930s Australia. Secondly, this novel needed a good trim of about 150 pages.
November 15, 2023
Sadly, this book was a real struggle for me. I started with the audiobook and got a third of the way through until I gave up. I just couldn’t keep up with all the characters and the changing of the timelines which was especially unclear on audio. Thinking the hard copy may be better, I popped it on hold at the local library and as a bit of time had passed I started from the beginning. The physical book was no better for my knowledge of the characters or the timelines. Sadly I continued to persist and after finishing yesterday, I really wish I hadn’t of bothered. I found myself really skimming the last 30 or so pages just to finish it.
I’m surprised that there are so many great reviews. The author’s research is superb and it’s an interesting subject but I struggle to understand how other reader’s brains did not explode with everything that was happening. It felt like sensory overload to me, it was so overwhelming.
There were SO many characters, I had trouble keeping up with who was who. It felt like everyone had 10 nicknames which were used interchangeably. One person would pop up early in the book and then they’d return much later on and I would forget who they were and what their significance was. The dialect was confusing. Sometimes it was easy to figure out what the ‘proper English’ word was but other times I had no idea. I don’t understand why there wasn’t a glossary for this. The lack of quotation marks also made it harder to follow and I found myself having to read a sentence a couple of times to confirm whether or not someone was talking and who it was. And in the beginning, I had absolutely no idea of the timeline structure of the book. The only thing that was dated was the court trial but then there were references to Iris already being in jail (I think was the Hay jail which I’m sure the book didn’t touch on), then she was in Sydney but then it went back to her childhood and her marriage to Ned. It was just confusing! It took too much energy for me to actually enjoy the book.
As the reviews show, the structure of this book doesn’t seem to have negatively impacted the majority of GR readers. For me however, it was a big factor in my lack of enjoyment. Is it a personal thing or maybe it’s my neurodivergent brain? I’m not sure.
⭐️⭐️
2 stars - purely because of the author’s dedication and research for the book.
I’m surprised that there are so many great reviews. The author’s research is superb and it’s an interesting subject but I struggle to understand how other reader’s brains did not explode with everything that was happening. It felt like sensory overload to me, it was so overwhelming.
There were SO many characters, I had trouble keeping up with who was who. It felt like everyone had 10 nicknames which were used interchangeably. One person would pop up early in the book and then they’d return much later on and I would forget who they were and what their significance was. The dialect was confusing. Sometimes it was easy to figure out what the ‘proper English’ word was but other times I had no idea. I don’t understand why there wasn’t a glossary for this. The lack of quotation marks also made it harder to follow and I found myself having to read a sentence a couple of times to confirm whether or not someone was talking and who it was. And in the beginning, I had absolutely no idea of the timeline structure of the book. The only thing that was dated was the court trial but then there were references to Iris already being in jail (I think was the Hay jail which I’m sure the book didn’t touch on), then she was in Sydney but then it went back to her childhood and her marriage to Ned. It was just confusing! It took too much energy for me to actually enjoy the book.
As the reviews show, the structure of this book doesn’t seem to have negatively impacted the majority of GR readers. For me however, it was a big factor in my lack of enjoyment. Is it a personal thing or maybe it’s my neurodivergent brain? I’m not sure.
⭐️⭐️
2 stars - purely because of the author’s dedication and research for the book.
December 7, 2022
This is the vivid and often brutal world of Surrey Hills, a suburb in Sydney during the 1930s slum period. Our main character, Iris, is a formidable character with a softer side that she rarely exposes but we are privileged to hear her inner most thoughts, told in the vernacular of the day. I really appreciate the research that went into this novel, reminding me of novels I read as a child, Caddie, A Sydney Barmaid: An Autobiography by Herself -Caddie and The Harp in the South Trilogy by Ruth Park. Iris is also told with a modern inclusive eye, while acknowledging the prejudices of the day and the limited options available to people.
Because of the 1930s vernacular this is an excellent novel to listen to, the narration is spot on. My Nan, grew up in the 1930s and was a barmaid & Hotel Manager in Victoria in the 1950s-1970s, on and off, and I could hear her at her roughest and also when she was speaking "proper" ("With a plum in her throat") in the narration. Fabulous stuff.
Because of the 1930s vernacular this is an excellent novel to listen to, the narration is spot on. My Nan, grew up in the 1930s and was a barmaid & Hotel Manager in Victoria in the 1950s-1970s, on and off, and I could hear her at her roughest and also when she was speaking "proper" ("With a plum in her throat") in the narration. Fabulous stuff.
July 15, 2023
I listened to the audio version of this book and loved it.
I loved the way she used the language of Sydney's poor - words and phrases we don't use any more. Interesting book to listen to off the back of 'The Dictionary of Lost Words'.
I respected that she was brave enough to portray the racism & its language without too much filtering (except through Iris). Maisie asks Iris if a local boy would like a cricket card, doubting it because the man is a 'darkie'. Iris responds ' He's a world class cricket player, Maisie!'
The treatment of women... Oh my goodness, she doesn't shy away from that. And the intense homophobia.
I felt like I knew 'Iris' at the end of the book, a tough, incredibly quick, street smart woman with a brilliant mind, dulled by poverty and trauma - but evident in her ability to understand her world & manoeuvre through it, her love for music and her curiosity. You can imagine the woman she would have been if she'd been raised in this day and age.
In truth, she was probably less likeable, but I think this book is well enough researched to give you something of truth and a lot to think about.
I thought I was going to give this book 4 stars but as I write about it I realise I liked it more than that - so I'll give it 5.
I loved the way she used the language of Sydney's poor - words and phrases we don't use any more. Interesting book to listen to off the back of 'The Dictionary of Lost Words'.
I respected that she was brave enough to portray the racism & its language without too much filtering (except through Iris). Maisie asks Iris if a local boy would like a cricket card, doubting it because the man is a 'darkie'. Iris responds ' He's a world class cricket player, Maisie!'
The treatment of women... Oh my goodness, she doesn't shy away from that. And the intense homophobia.
I felt like I knew 'Iris' at the end of the book, a tough, incredibly quick, street smart woman with a brilliant mind, dulled by poverty and trauma - but evident in her ability to understand her world & manoeuvre through it, her love for music and her curiosity. You can imagine the woman she would have been if she'd been raised in this day and age.
In truth, she was probably less likeable, but I think this book is well enough researched to give you something of truth and a lot to think about.
I thought I was going to give this book 4 stars but as I write about it I realise I liked it more than that - so I'll give it 5.
October 6, 2022
As someone who loved watching the lives of Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh through the Underbelly Razor TV series when I was younger, I was excited to pick up this book and hear more of the stories from the 1930’s in Sydney.
I really enjoyed the format of the book with the sections starting with Iris’ time waiting for her trial in Long Bay and then the backstory being told in between. It was like reading a book at both ends with the story coming together.
This is my first book that I’ve read by Fiona and I’m looking forward to reading more.
“So that’s what happens to us. We die, we’re buried then our bones are tossed aside.”
I really enjoyed the format of the book with the sections starting with Iris’ time waiting for her trial in Long Bay and then the backstory being told in between. It was like reading a book at both ends with the story coming together.
This is my first book that I’ve read by Fiona and I’m looking forward to reading more.
“So that’s what happens to us. We die, we’re buried then our bones are tossed aside.”
January 31, 2023
This is an interesting book about a time and place in Australian history that is rarely covered. It was interested to see a story focused on a young working class women who broke a lot of the convention of the time. I was not a fan of the writing style (no quotation marks) which made it difficult to understand. The book was also a little too long and could do with a good edit.
June 1, 2023
It was fabulous. It’s a little portal back into the 1930s and what a time it really wasn’t to be a woman. Gritty, beautifully written and quite scandalous. I recommend. It is wordy and takes a while to adjust to the language used at the time but boy does it add to the overall story.
July 5, 2023
Fiona Kelly McGregor’s exceptional book about the historical figure of Iris Webber is impressive in the breadth of both its research and imagining. Covering the life and known events of the protagonist’s life, the prose attempts to fill in the blank spaces of what such a life might have really been like to have lived. The narrative never shies away from the culpability of Webber regarding the violence enacted both upon her and by her, but it does manage to place it into the context of a time and place very different to our own. Having lived some years in inner Sydney and frequenting pubs in many of the featured locales, I found myself invested in this sense of dissonance, and how looking back at other eras is never a matter of mere time. In this regard, McGregor captures a snippet of a fascinating vernacular, and of the small domestic realities of life in Sydney in the Depression, at home, work and play.
Though the life and times of Iris Webber are portrayed as almost unrelentingly grim, with no possibility of class mobility or the promise of lasting economic stability to change her fortunes, McGregor still manages to imbue the text with small moments of reprieve for her character. These islands of balm are portrayed as surprising iterations of kindness, as well as snatches of humour, song and forays into both eroticism and love. In many ways, this book is reminiscent of Dorothy Park’s Harp in the South novels, so it was unsurprising that McGregor acknowledges their influence, along with a number of other listed texts.
At 429 pages Iris is longer than your average novel, but I found myself wanting to leave behind other tasks in order to make time to sit down and immerse myself again into the world that McGregor has so carefully recreated—a perfect balance between what can be known about the past and can only be remade as story.
Though the life and times of Iris Webber are portrayed as almost unrelentingly grim, with no possibility of class mobility or the promise of lasting economic stability to change her fortunes, McGregor still manages to imbue the text with small moments of reprieve for her character. These islands of balm are portrayed as surprising iterations of kindness, as well as snatches of humour, song and forays into both eroticism and love. In many ways, this book is reminiscent of Dorothy Park’s Harp in the South novels, so it was unsurprising that McGregor acknowledges their influence, along with a number of other listed texts.
At 429 pages Iris is longer than your average novel, but I found myself wanting to leave behind other tasks in order to make time to sit down and immerse myself again into the world that McGregor has so carefully recreated—a perfect balance between what can be known about the past and can only be remade as story.
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