For #SpinstersSeptember: The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCulloch

There are times when I want to throw a book against the wall, screaming 'This would never happen! What rubbish!'...and then there are the times when what I need is a little bit of escapism.

Fitting the latter category for me are authors like Jenny Colgan and Amanda Cross; we all know full well (sadly) that we're unlikely ever to meet the partner of our dreams on an idyllic Scottish island, nor to live in a New York penthouse with their equally desirable twin, but we don't mind. If a book's well written we can suspend disbelief for a few hours and indulge our fantasies.

Having trudged through a long and over-detailed biography during the fraught and frantic month of the Edinburgh festivals, I was looking for something light that would also work for Nora (@pear.jelly)  #SpinstersSeptember project. I didn't know what to expect when I picked up The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough, but I can now add another name to my list of authors to read when I'm just too tired or too busy to challenge myself with anything difficult.

Colleen McCullough. Image: Wikipedia

I must have been living in a bubble of oblivion because until I googled McCullough I had no idea she wrote The Thorn Birds (not that I've read that, but I have at least heard of it.) The Ladies of Missalonghi is somewhat less ambitious than that magnum opus, but I enjoyed this tale of a young woman who flies in the face of convention to challenge male power and turn her life around.

In the early years of the 20th century, Missy lives with her mother Drusilla and disabled aunt Octavia in genteel poverty in Byron, a train ride away from Sydney. The three women eek out their meagre income, milking their beloved cow, sewing, growing vegetables and somehow making ends meet. Missy is always dressed in a serviceable brown that lasts. She loathes it. 

The entire town is run by the Hurlingford males. Drusilla is a Hurlingford by birth, but married out; her husband died young and she was left with little. The only women who have any status in Byron are those who make 'good marriages', preferably within or into the Hurlingford clan, and tow the party line. The men run all the businesses and own almost all of the property in the town. Convention (and pressure) dictates that Missy's family can only sell their produce to the Hurlingford who runs the grocery store (and who gives them far less than they would get elsewhere), they can only buy their fabrics from the one who owns the drapery (again overcharging them at every turn) and they can only sell their fine linens to - guess who? another Hurlingford. 

And if all of this wasn't bad enough, these men also lie and cheat the unmarried Hurlingford women out of their rightful capital and income; the women don't question them because they've been brought up to believe that men know best.

Drusilla's sister Aurelia has also married out of the family, but to one of the richest men in town, manager of the local bottling plant Edmund Marshall. And now a wedding is on the horizon,

'Aurelia had a daughter, a daughter who was everything Drusilla's daughter was not. The two possessed only one thing in common; they were both thirty-three-year-old spinsters.'

Anastasia has a smart hat shop in town. Only the wealthiest women are invited to her salons, and she likes nothing better than to patronise Missy. And now Anastasia (after a first engagement to a tea planter who met his unfortunate end on the tusks of an elephant) has managed to hook the 19 year old heir to Sir William Hurlingford. 

Missy, Drusilla and Octavia have been invited to the wedding of the season, and Drusilla has conceded that they should all have new dresses and shoes. Missy's imagination soars - she envisages, 

'a scarlet dress! A lace dress in the sort of red that makes your eyes swim when you look at it...'

But no,

'I understand how disappointing this must be, (says Drusilla) but the truth of the matter is, Missy, that no other colour becomes you half so well as brown!'

Missy hasn't quite given up hope,

'Let us have shoes, pretty dainty shoes with Louis heels and bows on the front.'

But she is soon put in her place by Octavia,

'"Boots are what we must have, good sturdy boots with good sturdy laces and good sturdy thick heels on them. Boots last! Shoes are not for those who go on Shank's pony."

And that was that.'

'Shoes with Louis heels'
Image: prettykittyfashion.co.uk

And then two things happen.

When Missy has finished her chores, she's allowed to visit the local library. It's a private one run by Livilla Hurlingford, who makes sure Missy only borrows 'respectable' books - but now an assistant has appeared.

'...the new assistant was a Hurlingford, but not a Hurlingford from Byron; she hailed from the fleshpots of Sydney.'

Una is everything that Byron is not. She's exciting, glamorous, and most of all she is kind. She is more than happy to lend Missy all the romantic novels she wants,

'Darling, I have a novel you're going to adore!'

The two have become great friends.

Meanwhile, a stranger has arrived in town. Nobody knows anything about John Smith. Missy encounters him first in Maxwell Hurlingford's grocery store,

'The bell erupted into agitated life again as a man came through the door with a huge swirl of cold misty air and a dazzling briskness of purpose,

"Bloody hell, it's colder than a stepmother's tits out there!" gasped the newcomer, slapping his hands together.'

Smith, it seems, has bought up the wild valley in which Missy likes to roam and daydream. The Hurlingfords are shocked; they all thought it belonged to them. 

Missy is fascinated by Smith. And as time goes on she, encouraged by Una, sets her cap at him with more determination than anyone would have thought possible for this 'tongue-tied and sadly inhibited' girl. But it's not just romantic love that Missy seeks. She also wants revenge on the men - and some of the women - of the Hurlingford family, and justice for those who've been fooled and impoverished by their selfish, duplicitous behaviour.

And when she succeeds, and the walls of empire come crashing down for those who have done her wrong, Missy evolves into a truly magnificent woman

The Ladies of Missalonghi at first seems to be a simple tale well told. McCullough, however, weaves various plot threads together with skill to create a more complicated story. Her characters are without exception nuanced and well drawn - I particularly liked the way in which Drusilla, though obliged to be practical about the family's economic plight, understands how miserable Missy's situation is, never judges her for wanting more, and delights in her wins, both large and small. 

The twist (for there most definitely is one), when it comes, is both clever and (fantastic though it may be) somehow strangely logical.  The novel reminded me a little of Fannie Flagg's A Redbird Christmas; the story isn't the same, but both books have an element of magical realism, and both left me with the feeling that all was right with the world - or at least with the worlds within their covers. The Ladies of Missalonghi, however, also addresses patriarchy, snobbery, cruelty and misogyny, and even if its ending is a little bit unlikely, I was sufficiently engaged in the story to enjoy it without even thinking of throwing this book against the wall. 

The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough (1987) was originally published by Hutchinson. My edition was published by Head of Zeus.