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A review by slippy_underfoot
Green Dot by Madeleine Gray
4.0
This funny and affecting novel is narrated by Hera, a woman in her mid-twenties, living in Syndey. She’s a bit bewildered about her life. Only a few years earlier she and her friends were incandescent streaks of passionate ambition and snarkiness, and now there’s really only her left. Her friends have settled into the early stages of careers and longer-term relationships. Hera likes to give the impression that this doesn’t bother her, that she’s maintaining her independence and edge, and staying true to her (fairly unclear) principles.
After a cycle of short-term relationships and jobs Hera is starting to feel dissatisfied with her lot, and grudgingly accepts that she needs to at least appear to be growing up and taking ownership of her life. She starts work in a soul-sapping office and one of her coping strategies is to start a flirtation with an older colleague, Arthur. This soon gets serious and we learn more, but not all, about the unsettled nature of Hera’s childhood, and start to see that she may be overriding her own inner reservations about this affair because, as well as the love and sex and companionship she craves, she sees it as a low-effort shortcut to the state of “adulthood”.
Complications, of course, ensue.
This is a clear-sighted depiction of isolation, longing, passion, and the imbalance of power in relationships, presenting the things we endure for love until we reach a point where the imbalance must be confronted, and the fragility of the dream becomes all too apparent. Gray writes with verve and wit, skewering all her targets with a dead-eye for character and the delicate mechanics of social groups. It is one of those books – like Yellowface - where you find yourself wanting to shake the main character and protect them from themselves, while also understanding, if not condoning, their impulses. However maddening we find Hera’s capacity for self-justification, Arthur’s constant vacillation - or is it manipulation? – enrage and disappoint us as much as they do her.
An enjoyable, offbeat, tale of desire and heartbreak in the modern world.
After a cycle of short-term relationships and jobs Hera is starting to feel dissatisfied with her lot, and grudgingly accepts that she needs to at least appear to be growing up and taking ownership of her life. She starts work in a soul-sapping office and one of her coping strategies is to start a flirtation with an older colleague, Arthur. This soon gets serious and we learn more, but not all, about the unsettled nature of Hera’s childhood, and start to see that she may be overriding her own inner reservations about this affair because, as well as the love and sex and companionship she craves, she sees it as a low-effort shortcut to the state of “adulthood”.
Complications, of course, ensue.
This is a clear-sighted depiction of isolation, longing, passion, and the imbalance of power in relationships, presenting the things we endure for love until we reach a point where the imbalance must be confronted, and the fragility of the dream becomes all too apparent. Gray writes with verve and wit, skewering all her targets with a dead-eye for character and the delicate mechanics of social groups. It is one of those books – like Yellowface - where you find yourself wanting to shake the main character and protect them from themselves, while also understanding, if not condoning, their impulses. However maddening we find Hera’s capacity for self-justification, Arthur’s constant vacillation - or is it manipulation? – enrage and disappoint us as much as they do her.
An enjoyable, offbeat, tale of desire and heartbreak in the modern world.