Women in Black

by Madeleine St John

Genres: Friendship; Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

“The book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up.” —Hilary Mantel “Tart, beguiling, witty and compassionate, Madeleine St. John’s novel is a literary boost for the spirits.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air “A deceptively smart comic gem.” – The New York Times Book Review “Witty and delicious.” – People The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at Goode’s department store, are busy selling ladies’ dresses during the holiday rush. But they somehow find time to pursue other goals… Patty, in her mid-thirties, has been working at Goode’s for years. Her husband, Frank, eats a steak for dinner every night, watches a few minutes of TV, and then turns in. Patty yearns for a baby, but Frank is always too tired for that kind of thing. Sweet, unlucky Fay wants to settle down with a nice man, but somehow nice men don’t see her as marriage material. Glamorous Magda runs the high-end gowns department. A Slovenian émigré, Magda is cultured and continental and hopes to open her own boutique one day. Lisa, a clever and shy teenager, takes a job at Goode’s during her school break. Lisa wants to go to university and dreams of becoming a poet, but her father objects to both notions. By the time the last marked-down dress is sold, all of their lives will be forever changed. A pitch-perfect comedy of manners set during a pivotal era, and perfect for fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Women in Black conjures the energy of a city on the cusp of change and is a testament to the timeless importance of female friendship.

Release date: February 11, 2020

Publisher: Scribner

Print pages: 224

Sample

Chapter 1

1
At the end of a hot November day Miss Baines and Mrs. Williams of the Ladies’ Frocks Department at Goode’s were complaining to each other while they changed out of their black frocks before going home.

“Mr. Ryder’s not so bad,” said Miss Baines, in reference to the floor manager; “it’s that Miss Cartright who’s a pain in the neck, excuse my French.”

Miss Cartright was the buyer, and she never seemed to give them a moment’s peace.

Mrs. Williams shrugged and began to powder her nose. “She always gets worse at this time of the year,” she pointed out. “She wants to make sure we earn our Christmas bonus.”

“As if we could help it!” said Miss Baines. “We’re run off our feet!”

Which was quite true: the great festival being now only six weeks away, the crowds of customers were beginning to surge and the frocks to vanish from the rails in an ever-faster flurry, and when Mrs. Williams was washing out her undies in the handbasin that night she had a sudden sensation that her life was slipping away with the rinsing water as it gurgled down the plughole; but she pulled herself together and went on with her chores, while the antipodean summer night throbbed outside all around her.

Mrs. Williams, Patty, and Miss Baines, Fay, worked together with Miss Jacobs on Ladies’ Cocktail Frocks, which was next to Ladies’ Evening Frocks, down at the end of the second floor of Goode’s Department Store in the centre of Sydney. F. G. Goode, a sharp Mancunian, had opened his original Emporium (“Ladies’ and Gents’ Apparel—All the Latest London Modes”) at the end of the last century, and had never looked back, because the people of the colony, he saw straightaway, would spend pretty well all they had in order to convince themselves that they were in the fashion. So now his grandchildren were the principal shareholders in a concern which turned over several million Australian pounds every year, selling the latest London modes, and any modes from other sources which looked likely. Italian modes were in the ascendancy at present. “I got it at Goode’s,” as the caption said, on that insufferable drawing of a superior-looking lady preening herself in a horribly smart new frock before the envious and despairing gaze of her friend—the frocks and the poses might change with the years, but that ad always ran in the bottom left-hand corner of the women’s page in the Herald: I believe the space was booked in perpetuity, and the caption had long since become a city-wide catchphrase. Goode’s stayed ahead of the competition by means of a terrific dedication to the modes. They sent the buying talent abroad for special training at the great department stores of London and New York. When the new season’s clothes came into the shop twice a year the staff worked overtime, pricing and displaying, exclaiming the while.

“Never mind if it does retail at £9.17.6,” said Miss Cartright, “this model will vanish within a fortnight—you mark my words!”

And this they duly did.