A BOOK LOVER’S REVIEW
Mrs M BY LUKE SLATTERY
RICH PATTERN
A walk down Recipe Lane Like most people, I’ve collected some recipe favourites over time, all faithfully jammed into a plastic slide-in folder, spine broken and entombed with sticky tape. By Liz Foster. Recently I was struck at how much of my life it reflected. But I’m not talking about the recipes. It’s the other details that yank me back. My favourite handout from the Easy Asian Cookery course I did is in there (July 1997), back when I thought learning to cook might make me like it more. It’s the general rule regarding proportions of rice and liquid for a perfect cook each time. I now have a rice cooker, but can’t part with the sheet. Hand-written notes can’t be disposed of either. The handwriting of a much beloved friend lost to cancer some years back is preserved forever between the plastic pages. Her recipe for Chicken Liver Pate includes the bracketed line ‘I soak the livers in brandy just before I start’. I’m watching her pottering in her kitchen when I read this. My mum’s favourite staples recycled over and over are also captured – not discovered until after her death, bless her, but typed neatly in Word with a front page titled ‘Recipes from Mum to the Girls with my love xx’. I’ll never cook them, but clearly they’re staying. There’s my schoolfriend Rosie’s distinctive writing detailing her banana cake, taking me back to laborious note-taking during interminable history lessons. My long passed elderly neighbour’s spidery cursive script, immortalised for all time on yellowing paper via her ‘Simplicity Chocolate Cake.’ My sister’s handwritten Chilli recipe (Chilli à la Pete), all the way from England and still a family favourite. It’s not just the recipes. On one page I’ve used an old kindergarten homework sheet from my daughter, which makes my heart swell. Another is printed on scrap I’ve brought home from work, picturing a now defunct product campaign I was working on. There’s stuff in there by my husband as well, scribbled out after calls to his mother for that Greek classic he grew up on (and which his wife is unable to deliver). His version of Pastitsio is preserved in pink biro on the Kris Kringle Shopping List pad I got one year from the weird guy in Accounts. There are also emails I’ve printed from friends with personal notations – ‘let me know how you go! Hope to see you in the New Year! The girls are growing up fast!’ The folder’s been full for years, but when something new catches my eye I still squeeze it in somewhere. I might never cook half of what’s in there, but I’ll never part with it. 14 TVO OCTOBER 2018
Mrs M is a compelling historical novel about the lives and dreams of Governor Macquarie and his wife, Elizabeth. Review by Jacqui Serafim. It was during Governor Macquarie’s term, and under his auspices, that the iconic buildings and parks of Sydney were designed and built including Hyde Park Barracks; St James Church; the Botanical Gardens and The Domain; and, of course, Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. Mrs M elucidates this fascinating period in Australia’s history while providing the reader with an ‘imagined history’ of their life together. The novel opens as Elizabeth, back in her husband’s home on the Island of Mull, struggles through the night to write an epitaph for her husband that transcends the ‘calamity’ and ‘indignity’ of their return from Sydney after Macquarie is dismissed as Governor. Elizabeth tells the story of their work to transform Sydney from a dumping ground for Britain’s criminal outcasts to a grand city based on the ideals of equality and freedom. Elizabeth is a fascinating character: strong, purposeful and idealist but dignified and intelligent. Governor Macquarie is quite a revolutionary for his time – his dream is to build a civilisation through beautiful architecture, streetscapes, parks and gardens, and to create a society with the opportunity for freedom and social mobility. Macquarie recognised the potential and skills of many of the convicts such as builders, artisans and farmers and provided emancipation and a new life to hundreds of prisoners left to rot in the penal colony. It is through the reforming zeal of Macquarie that we meet The Architect, convicted and transported for forgery. His brilliant mind and architectural talent is soon recognised by Governor Macquarie and so begins a partnership to transform the face of Sydney. Here Luke Slattery weaves his fiction through the history as the romance develops between Elizabeth and The Architect. Slattery never names The Architect as Francis Greenway and in this way, manages to portray an invented, but convincing relationship which grows between a passionate young woman married to a man 20 years her senior and a young, brilliant man as all three work together. Slattery shows how shared passion for an idea can transcend the boundaries of the project to become a romantic obsession. I loved the way the relationships were drawn between the three central characters. Slattery portrays the complexity of the romantic triangle with sensitivity and depth. Like many Australians, I knew about the Macquaries and Francis Greenway, but the sympathetic depictions of their characters - their dreams and their disgrace - touched me deeply. The fictionalised romance added depth to the characters and piquancy to the story against a backdrop of beautifully drawn Australian landscapes. But it is the legacy of the Macquaries – their architectural vision and egalitarian ideals - which is an integral part of Australia’s history and is at the heart of this book. Luke Slattery is a world-renowned Sydney-based journalist. Mrs M is his fifth book, and his first novel.
