The women in black : a novel / Madeleine St John.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

St. John, Madeleine, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Australia--Fiction.

Women.

Women's clothing industry.

Employees.

Department stores--Employees.

Australia.

Female friendship--Fiction.

Female friendship.

Department stores--Employees--Fiction.

Department stores.

Women's clothing industry--Employees--Fiction.

Nineteen fifties--Fiction.

Nineteen fifties.

Sydney (N.S.W.)--History--20th century--Fiction.

Sydney (N.S.W.).

New South Wales--Sydney.

Genre:

Fiction.

Bildungsromans.

History.

Novels of manners.

Physical Description:

209 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First Scribner trade paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Scribner, 2020.

Summary:

"The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at an upscale department store called Goode's, are run off their feet selling ladies' cocktail dresses during the busy season. But in Sydney in the 1950s, there's always time to pursue other goals... Patty, in her mid-thirties, has been working at Goode's for years. She's married to Frank, who eats a steak for dinner every night, watches a few minutes of TV, and then turns in, leaving Patty to her own thoughts. She wants a baby, but Frank is always too tired for that kind of thing. Sweet Fay wants to settle down with a nice man, but somehow nice men don't see her as marriage material. The glamorous Magda runs the high-end gowns department. A Slovenian émigré who met her Hungarian husband in a refugee camp, Magda is clever and cultured. She finds the Australians to be unfashionable, and dreams of opening her own boutique one day. Lisa, a teenager awaiting the results of her final exams, takes a job at Goode's for the holidays. She wants to go to university and secretly dreams of being a poet, but her father objects to both notions. Magda takes Lisa under her wing, and by the time the last marked-down dress has been sold, all of their lives will be forever changed" -- Amazon.com

Notes:

Originally published in Great Britain in 1993 by André Deutsch.

Includes reading group guide with topics and questions for discussion.

ISBN:

9781982134082

1982134089

OCLC:

1105951257