Shirley

by Ronnie Scott

It’s been twenty years since her mother was photographed, blood-soaked, outside the family home. A famous TV food personality, she fled the country. Since that time, the girl has grown up. She’s bought an apartment, learned her own cooking style, fallen in love. She lives a quiet life, working as a copywriter for a health insurance company. She’s found happiness, finally.

But strange things are in the air. Her easygoing boyfriend has started sleeping with men. Her mother is selling the infamous family home. And a glamorous, pregnant neighbour has moved into the apartment downstairs, calling into question everything the girl believes about her own desires.

Among conspiracies, dubious loyalties, and mercenary impulses, how do we work out who is worthy of our devotion and who is just a fan? Shirley charts a search for meaning in a world where the fracturing of ambitions – work and purpose, real estate and home, family and love – has left us uncertain how to recognise ourselves.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Novels

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Ronnie Scott writes essays and criticism for newspapers, websites and magazines. In 2007 he founded The Lifted Brow, an independent literary magazine. He's a Lecturer in the Writing and Publishing discipline at RMIT University. The Adversary is his first novel.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 rounded down

Located in Melbourne, this story, bookended by bushfire smoke and the beginning of the Covid lockdowns, is told in the first person. I really struggled with this novel. I felt no connection to the characters. I found the story very slow, somewhat mundane and basically uninteresting. I just kept putting it down, largely bored, and then wondering why I picked it up again - hence the three weeks in the reading, which is unlike me. The fact that many have loved it probably indicates that I am far removed from the demographic at which it is aimed.

[Kate [catching up] · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded down. I really wanted to like this one, but I struggled with the writing style and found the whole thing quite meandering and purposeless. There were so many overly detailed conversations between our protagonist and peripheral characters which lent nothing to the plot, the characters, or otherwise, and I found myself getting to the end of a chapter and asking myself what had even happened there.

I can see what Scott was trying to do—this is definitely a character study more so than a story led by plot—but it fell pretty flat for me. Bummer.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm afraid I didn't find very much of the promised black humour in this novel - just the bleakness, sadness and claustrophobia of the looming and interminable Melbourne lockdown, which is itself seldom mentioned. The lockdown begins in the final pages of the book.
The humour I did find comes from the narrators (quite well depicted) fragmented relationship with her spectacularly disinterested mother.
The story is bookended by the bushfires that preceded the pandemic and the aforementioned lockdown, and infused with a general dread of the whole "something nasty in the woodshed" event from our narrators earlier years.
This serves to set a scene of pervasive and oppressive ennui amongst a cast of fairly unloveable characters.
And don't even ask me what the cat was all about.
Thanks to publishers, Penguin, who provided me with a review copy of this book.

[Rebecca Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is such a boring book. Which is a shame cos I heard Ronnie Scott speak at MWF and he seemed like a real delight. Nothing happens and all the characters are very dull. Sure there is a sense of place - but in the same way that the Melways has a sense of place. So many mundane directions and street names. I could barely stay awake.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott’s latest book is another novel of manners that explores our relationship with animals, with each other, with food, with our work, with our city, with our pasts, with our mothers. His prose has a lovely effortless quality to it and his sentences a fun bouncy cadence, especially in the first half. The book is equally about nothing and everything and I really enjoyed it. The denouement was somewhat unsatisfying ultimately and perhaps even unneccessary. Scott is an observant writer though who somehow manages to get onto the page so many fleeting thoughts and feelings I’ve had, especially about lockdown. It was exciting to encounter them.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Urgh. This novel is one of the worst things I've read in years. Ostensibly about a woman who is a highly successful copywriter for an insurance firm (so already it's not believable), and her mother, who is a celebrity chef on television. There's a bunch of links to Melbourne's food scene, including the woman's ex-boyfriend who works for a neighbour who owns a spice business.

There are so many things wrong with this book -

the painful dialogue that never shifts from 'I said xxxx. He said xxx. Then I said xxxx.'
the pointless details that contribute nothing to the story - street names, descriptions of food packaging, and at least three adjectives for every single thing described - there's a whole section about scrambled tofu ('...it was Collingwood and she had come across me making scrambled tofu...'), another about martinis, and another about Kraft mac'n'cheese. No. One. Cares.
strange inconsistencies - for example the chef criticises her daughter for serving an unimaginative 'trio of dips' and yet in the next paragraph it's revealed she doesn't know who Ottolenghi is. Really?
the mother and the ex-boyfriend are portrayed as immature and child-like, with the woman constantly reprimanding them in an authoritarian way. Nothing about her thoughts or dialogue ring true.

I'll leave you with some quotes that I think demonstrate the nonsense -

One thing about me is that I can easily recognise a child when I see one.

David appeared behind me in his fabulous shirt and familiar checkered pajama bottoms from Target Country.

...she brought out a media nickname for my mother that I have never liked. It’s a diminutive ending with 'ie' - this country’s way of saying, ‘Ah, you can go to Europe and chop salads with Alanis Morissette but we’ll never forget when you were a child.’ Even though they hadn’t known her when she was a child. She had always been an adult woman.

1/5

[ariana · Rating 3 out of 5]

protagonist was like a rooney x diana reid wet dream (tortured by the quotidian!) — flat characters, but otherwise well written and grounded

[Linda (Lily) Raiti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shirley - Ronnie Scott

Well, this one was a bit of a surprise, in a good way. It’s difficult to review - there’s a lot going on about nothing and yet everything. I need to premise by saying it’s refreshing to read about a complex, often unstable, odd, female protagonist written with insightful depth, by a male. Bravo Ronnie Scott.

Now the book, it’s good, very good in fact! Our unnamed protagonist has a complicated relationship with her quasi-famous celebrity chef mother. In fact there is a heavy theme on food and cooking in the book. The protagonist is vegan and there are some scrumptious descriptions of food, smoothies and recipes throughout. Mr Scott also takes us to some well known restaurants and places throughout Melbourne.

On Melbourne - the witting is extremely atmospheric, with a strong sense of place. I could picture with ease where we were sitting and the surrounds. Being my home city, I could feel the very essence of Melbourne, its vivid cafe and restaurant scene and fringe city apartment living.

The book is set during the period of the tragic Black summer bushfires and Melbourne’s first lockdown in 2020.

What’s it about you ask?

Among conspiracies, dubious loyalties, and mercenary impulses, how do we work out who is worthy of our devotion and who is just a fan? Shirley charts a search for meaning in a world where the fracturing of ambitions – work and purpose, real estate and home, family and love – has left us uncertain how to recognise ourselves.

In my words, it’s about the complexities of relationships, exploring sexuality, cats, food, work and loneliness. And oh so much more. The prose is beautiful, Scott manages to make you feel like you’re having a conversation with a friend- getting a glimpse into the life of someone you might know.

Overall, it’s unique, funny, deeply affecting and I really enjoyed it.

A tantalising 4 ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Many thanks to the wonderful team @penguinaus for a #gifted advanced reading copy.

[Levi Huxton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man this guy can write.

Like its wonderful predecessor, The Adversary, Ronnie Scott’s Shirley hides its depths in plain sight, among the minutiae of contemporary Melbourne life.

Using precise, sometimes counterintuitive language, Scott creates a world whose familiar surface warps slightly, as if disturbed by deeper currents, reflecting back a picture of our lives today that’s strangely comforting and disturbing at the same time.

I had a week of shitty days, and every night I looked forward to surrendering to this novel, its pull hard to explain, even in hindsight.

I do find Shirley challenging to write about (always a good sign), so I’ll give you another reason to get a copy. The narrator: “On a thirty-five degree Sunday, I made the best smoothie of my life,” and then she proceeds to describe its ingredients. Well this morning, on a thirty-five degree day in Sydney, I made the exact same smoothie, entirely as described. And you know what? It‘s hands down the best smoothie I’ve ever tasted.

[Tracey · Rating 1 out of 5]

First book club selection for 2024 and it would have been a DNF otherwise. It was so boring. I didn’t care about any of the characters. Was there even a point? You are conscious the whole time that the main character, a female, is being written by a male. The writing is very, very ordinary and yet the author teaches Creative Writing at RMIT? Set in Melbourne and one of the many irritations is the way the unnamed main character keeps referring to ‘West Brunswick’ - it’s Brunswick West ffs. Quotes on the cover use words like ‘intimate’, ‘elegant’, ‘gritty’, ‘utterly captivating’, ‘funny’, ‘beautifully perceptive’, ‘a tantalising delight’ - did we all read the same book??

[Samantha Khosid · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF about halfway through.

I really really tried with this one. I usually will persevere through an average book because I need a sense of completion.

The storyline didn’t flow in the slightest, I constantly felt myself being confused and to be honest it was painful trying to understand what was going on.

[Tundra · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Some despicable (but interesting) characters but I ultimately found it difficult to engage with this book. While there were some amusing moments I could not relate to or understand a lot of the behaviour in this book. Perhaps I’m just not the target audience but I struggled to connect the dots. Horrible mother, weird ‘Gerald’s’ (guardian???), unlikeable narcissistic neighbours, pathetic boyfriend, strange food obsessions and a geriatric cat. The conversations about parenting and child rearing may have had some connection but overall this novel didn’t give me an ‘aha’ moment.

[Ronnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A resonant, stylish, achingly recognisable novel about cats, mothers, work, care, food, loneliness, duplicity, independence and interconnection, set in that weird hazy summer between bushfires and pandemic. Seemingly out of nowhere I found myself weeping on the final page (and I don’t really care for cats). Ronnie Scott’s prose is not obnoxious or showy but it would have every right to be; he’s a truly masterful writer and Shirley is disarming and deeply affecting.

[Michelle Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t know if I liked this book until the ending, which is both good and bad in a book.
I did like it overall, but I laboured with some parts in which I felt the dialogue was overly unrealistic or bordered on a little too strange.
Yet, at the end I felt quite fulfilled, and like I wanted to keep reading about the protagonist and it not to end, even though I didn’t like her very much. I was drawn into her loop and was intrigued by a male author’s capacity to reflect a woman and her desires/flaws/strengths so authentically.
Whenever I thought I made up my mind about a character, I actually hadn’t. I also loved the strong sense of place.
Even though nothing really “happened” I didn’t mind as that wasn’t the point. It was about the people and our complex relationships and desires.
But- in some moments I felt oddly disconnected. 3.5/5.

[Alistair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dear Reader,
Do you ever get to that stage in a book (whether it be fiction or nonfiction), when it suddenly occurs to you: why am I reading this? Or, does it creep up on you, somewhat insidiously, page by page?
For me, it was the latter. I had read 118 pages of a 288 page novel, and I had no idea why, to the point that I ceased reading; there was no plot, no definitive characterisations - apart from the absent mother figure. Now there was an interesting character. This aimless ramble into the life of our un-named narrator left me unmoved and clueless. Perhaps the gen-Ys will love it.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This frustrated me for two hundred plus pages with it’s weird plot and stilted characters, and then I liked the last three pages.

[James Whitmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shirley begins in the midst of a Melbourne lockdown, that time of "too much email, making a small dinner too early, and, afterwards, nothing new to stimulate … dreams". Which one, of six as our narrator helpfully reminds us, isn't clear, but a return to the office appears on the horizon. Like some of us, those of us with jobs that permitted working from home, who didn't have life-threatening vulnerabilities to the virus or care for someone who did, she finds it a time of, if not peace, then at least comfortableness, in her one bedroom, first floor Richmond apartment. Read more on my blog.

[Abbey Hilder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn’t capture me with the plot, characters were interesting but I felt like nothing really moved

[Camila - Books Through My Veins · Rating 1 out of 5]

- thanks to @penguinbooksaus for a #gifted copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion

I have never read anything by Scott before, so I went into Shirley with gusto. Admittedly, I did not have the author on my radar before this book, but when Shirley came out, it looked like everybody on Bookstagram was reading it, so my FOMO did not allow me to walk away from this novel.

I did not know much about what Shirley was about when I started reading it, but I soon realised I was facing a plotless story heavy on characterisation and a deep exploration of life during the bushfire season and the first COVID lockdowns in Melbourne. Now, I do not mind plotless novels at all, and I am also more than willing to read books that explore COVID... as long as there is a purpose in sight, something I did not find here.

I believe my main issue was that I could not connect with the characters in any meaningful way; in fact, the more I learned about them, the more I disliked them. I found every single one of them pretty unrelatable and too obfuscated for my liking, getting constantly fixated on the most meaningless things. It is very judgmental of me to say this, of course, but their inner worlds felt frivolous and trivial. They seemed to enjoy surrounding themselves with people exactly like them. Yet, they could not stop judging one another from places of imagined superiority. I tried to empathise and simply comprehend their reasonings, but I failed.

Given that this novel is all about its characters and nothing much happens regarding plot development, there was virtually nothing else for me to try to enjoy. I did not have a problem finishing the novel, as in, I did not have to push myself to read, yet I was not genuinely invested in getting to the end but more carried away by the mechanical impulse to be done and move on.

Overall, Shirley was not my cup of tea. It is a novel focused on character study, yet I was unable to believe and care for any of its characters. I would recommend it to readers who are not burned out by COVID-19 stories and can engage with characters easily.

[Tracy Cufone · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know what all the fuss was about with this book. It’s lethargic and uninteresting. I found it very difficult to wade through its content. On the plus side; if you want a book about a cat you’ve come to the right place, or did I miss the point?

[Nora Nora · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of DNF, at around 55% I skipped the next 40% and listened the ending because I saw a review mentioning you have to read the last few pages.
1, the writing did not work for me
2, the characters are unlikable
3, who actually talks/ acts this way in real life??

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Captures Melbourne in that strange period between the bushfires and the first lockdown with chilling accuracy. Like his other writing, there is comfort in the streets you are familiar with but leaves you wanting something more, something different, something new.

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have only ever not finished 5 books in my entire life, and this is one of them. I was expecting to love it but found it boring, overly detailed and filled with unlikeable characters with no captivating storyline. Kept reading in the hope it would improve but couldn’t finish.

[Michael McKeever · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introspective story, enjoyable characters, but in the end underwhelming

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘The past two years haven’t been too easy on anyone, but in many ways it’s really been a comfortable time for me, …’

Alas, I cannot remember who recommended this novel to me, which is probably just as well, because I am not sure whether to thank them. Sigh. Did I enjoy it? Yes, in parts but I am easily frustrated by reading about women in their thirties who have complex relationships with their mothers. And having written that, I kept being drawn back into the story wanting to know more about the people involved.

The novel is set in Melbourne in the interregnum between the 2019 bushfires and the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020. The unnamed woman is a copywriter for an insurance company who has recently bought a one-bedroom apartment. She has a couple of interesting relationships, and there’s an elderly cat involved. And in and around the cat, and the sale of Shirley (a house, not a person) we learn why her mother, a famous television personality who made her name through quirky cooking shows, left Australia years earlier.

There are a couple of ways to read this novel. You can wander through looking for linear connections: what happened, to whom and why (and be frustrated) or you can just enjoy Mr Scott’s descriptions of people, place and situation.

Once I stopped trying to work out why and just focussed on description, I enjoyed the story more. Except for the cat. I am sad about the cat. Oh, and I also hope that the Geralds found fulfilling lives.

‘You can’t rush towards what’s waiting for you; good or bad, you can be sure it will come.’

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Bianca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reserved the audiobook after reading a review in the Guardian. I was intrigued by the male writer's "audaciousness" :-) who dared write a novel from a woman's point of view.

Shirley is written in the first person, our narrator is a thirty-something unnamed woman, living in an apartment in a nice area of Melbourne. She has a strange relationship with her (in)famous mother, a cooking shows presenter, who's been living abroad for the past twenty years when she caused a scandal. The narrator had been neglected and dismissed by her mother and is still trying to find her own path in life.

The novel began in 2019, wildfires were raging around Australia's Eastern states.
Our narrator meets a few neighbours, who are kind of puzzling, interesting and elusive at the time. I must admit, I didn't find those characters believable, better said, something was missing.

There are trips back in time, which allow us to know more about the narrator. There's an elderly cat and a few secondary characters who are introduced but who didn't add that much to the story.

I don't know if it was the narrator's delivery, the writing, or a mix of the two, at times, the writing was too choppy for my liking.

My quickly penned review sounds like I didn't enjoy the novel. While I was listening to it, I was invested, just to have that feeling at the end that's best described as "oh, is that it?"

[Rhoda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to Penguin Australia for sending me a copy of this book to review!

Set in Melbourne’s inner north, this book is set in the time between the Victorian bushfires of 2019 and the beginning of the Covid lockdowns. The unnamed narrator has an apartment in Collingwood not far from the house (Shirley) that she grew up in with her famous food personality mother in Abbotsford. Her immediate neighbours include her ex-boyfriend who she recently split with and his boss. (I mean, all quite normal right 😆).

There is pretty much no storyline to this book which is more just a passing of time. So you would hope that the characters are strong enough to keep the story moving and interesting. Not so (in my opinion). I had no idea what these characters were doing half the time (besides wandering around Hoddle Street) or what they were trying to convey to others. The dialogue was the most stilted and awkward conversation I have ever read and felt more like people talking in proximity to other people, but not actually to them 🤔

There seemed to be lots of themes, but none of them seemed to link to anything else or serve any real purpose to the story and I was really quite baffled as to what the author was trying to say. The only things I liked about the book were the Melbourne references which I could picture and the storyline about Meanie the cat. I have no idea how the cat fit in with the rest of the story, but I liked it anyway. ⭐️⭐️/5.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are several layers to this book, and since finishing it I am still ruminating on the key messages. It's the tension, and wild retrospective look of our pre-Covid lockdown world, right before everything changed. Our wide open hopes, dashed by those isolation times and the edge everything came to.

It's also about privilege and the layers of class inherently in our general society, even when we don't think about it. The juxtaposition here of the flighty rich, the privileged daughter who can save whilst living under her parent's fame and fortune, and then the struggles of the rest of us - not able to keep making rent on an apartment we are working three jobs to maintain.

Ultimately, the main story is the aftermath for a daughter of a woman who rose to fame on morning television, cooking, and then had a disastrous and mysterious moment that tore her down in Australia. She fled the country to set up her ongoing career, leaving the daughter in the hands of caretakers.

What becomes of that girl, who are her people when she's an adult trying to find her way, behind a recognisable face? How does she relate to people, when this was her story?

I was engaged, but not overly invested, and struggled to really like any of the characters enough to feel like this will be a memorable read for me.

[Jayne Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing read. Told retrospectivly, set in the summer of 2020 as the bushfires rage and then into the beginning of lockdown in Melbourne. Very cleverly written - I like how the author very cleverly never gave actual names to his "famous celebrity" characters. Instead of reading some made up name of a famous person, therefore not sounding famous at all, we can truly believe that the main character truly has a very famous mother and famous friends in the music industry. As a reader we almost try to guess who they all could be - extremely clever writing!
Why did I not give this 5 stars then? I felt like I was never fully satisfied with the plot and with how the story was unfolding for the main character - you could argue however that this makes it all the more realistic.
I did fall in love with "Meanie" the cat and it meant that I cared about David despite the fact that he hurt his girlfriend on New Years of 2020.
I suppose I wanted to know more, we do learn more as the book goes on, and it is quite sad how the main character can't quite get life to work out for her. She seems happy though content and realistic. Frankie.....I can't say much without spoiling the ending, but geez what a piece of work.

[Bianca · Rating 3 out of 5]

✍️ This story is set in Melbourne in 2020 at the start of COVID. Our unnamed narrator lives in a nice apartment with neighbours who are a bit strange. Her relationship with her infamous mother is very strange too and distant. A story about food, cats, cooking and family.

I will be honest in saying that when I read the Synopsis I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get a good grasp of the book however as soon as I started reading I was slightly mistaken.

I was extremely impressed by the way the story was Gracefully and Judiciously written and how it was presented with an ingenious and sophisticated atmosphere and great attention to detail. The fact that the author is male and able to write in a female voice so well is a testament to how much of a difference it makes in the quality of the work that is written in the book.

The title of the story was quite apt to convey the name of a house rather than the name of a character which I found to be a clever use of a title.

The development of the unimaginable characters was very well thought out and cleverly executed.

There was a myriad of light and dark themes that were associated with the story which blended together well. Whilst not my typical style of book I did find the writing to be very interesting.