Australian Women's Book Review Volume 14.1 - School of English ...

The Hallmark of the Ordinary
Anita Diamant, Good Harbour. Allen and Unwin, 2001
Reviewed by Carolyn Hughes.
Reading this book was a depressing experience. Not because of the subject matter of mid-life marital
trouble and breast cancer, but because these themes are handled without any depth or even sharp
observation. The novel is riddled with clichés at every turn - the plot, the characters, the dialogue, the
setting, the ending.
The main characters, Kathleen and Joyce, meet in a seaside town at a difficult time in their lives. They
form a friendship that exceeds the limits of the closeness they have with their husbands. On their
regular walks together along the beach at Good Harbour they share secrets and talk about parts of their
lives they feel they can't discuss within their respective marriages. The title of the novel and the name
of the beach, Good Harbour, are not very subtle hints at the role of the friendship as a good harbour
during life's troubles.
Kathleen doesn't relate to her husband Buddy as easily as she does to other women, and strongly feels
the absence of her sister, who died years previously from breast cancer. Kathleen is a children's
librarian and, like her sister, is diagnosed with breast cancer; hers, however, is a lesser form that is
successfully treated with surgery and radium therapy.
Joyce is writing a romance novel at a cottage near Good Harbour and the novel is faltering, along with
her domestic arrangements. As a reaction to her increasingly distant marriage she has an affair with an
inexplicable character who won't take his pants off, for reasons that remain unknown. She is depressed
because, in her own words she is 'such a cliché'. If a character in the text can articulate these words,
why then doesn't Diamant go deeper than the cliché? Why not explore the nuances of Joyce's
ordinariness? Or examine why the character considers herself to be a cliché? The novel is like a long
Hallmark card and, funnily enough, Joyce says to Kathleen: 'I love it up here. But when I try to explain
what made me pick Gloucester, I end up sounding like a Hallmark card.' This is an unfortunate choice
of words for Joyce because it can ironically be applied both to the character's life and the novel in
general.
Each character speaks of problems with motherhood - and this is where the novel has its few interesting
if undeveloped moments. Kathleen's grown sons could have provided more complexity, particularly in
regard to Jewishness and the relationship between mother and son. Joyce's twelve year old daughter is
shuffled off to camp and out of the novel making her presence brief, although she does provide some
interesting tension.
Because of the flatness and clichés, there is no sparkle. Good Harbour offers nothing significant in
terms of a literary contribution to representations of female friendship. The friendship is ultimately
unconvincing because it is dialogue-driven with little inner narrative. The dialogue between the two
women tries really hard to be fresh and witty, but comes across as a bit flirty and strained (Gilmore
Girls-esque), and doesn't convey any ease or familiarity between the two women.
I imagine the audience Diamant attracted with The Red Tent would have had, like myself, higher
expectations of her second novel. Without the setting and characters already sketched for her (The Red
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