Monkey Grip, by Helen Garner (1977)

I had been eyeing off Helen Garner books for a while. They were common and prominent in Melbourne bookstores and after I saw her described as Australia’s greatest ever living writer I felt compelled to read one of her works. Monkey Grip probably wasn’t the best book for this though. Although it has received a high status in Australian literature I struggled with the book. One of the common criticism I read about this was that it represented a sort of diary, a fact that Garner herself appears to have accepted. This made the already challenging content even less digestible for me.

Monkey Grip is a tragic romance between Nora and Javo. Nora is a thirty something creative living in an inner-city Melbourne share house and Javo is a drug addict. Nora is obsessed with Javo, unable to wean herself off him, and the book tracks both her inability to tear herself away from him, just as it tracks his inability to pull himself from drugs. The gritty world portrayed in this book was interesting, but it was crude and grotesque, filled with characters that seemed to lack any sort of direction or support, too wrapped up in themselves to seek or offer real support.

The fact Nora is a mother underlined the tragedy of her obsession with Javo, who’s blue eyes appear to be his only offering to her and get more of a mention than Nora’s own daughter. Nora is in the deep end and ultimately only able to be separated from Javo when he leaves her for another woman.

The only parallel I have to this world was the princess hill parents in ‘The Slap’ who similarly displayed this desire to seem cool whilst being a complete mess behind closed doors. This obsession with wanting to be independent in some ways prevents these characters from acknowledging when a situation is lost, or seeking out any sort of real help. Ironically this out of focus perspective is emphasised by the character’s interest with high culture and large political rallies. The want to contribute to something bigger without first dealing with the issues close to home, nor asking for help.

The lack of character development or self-awareness means that the graphic and cringe inducing descriptions of drug use and sex became even more hard to read, knowing that you were often just left to watch characters make their situations worse. An unpleasant read that left me feeling hopeless and empty.