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

gold medal win, watched by the whole of Australia, was about the future, about 'what's not attained but
might be, with a long way to go' (4).
And though the shifting locales might be difficult at first to integrate into a coherent narrative of 'our
country', they all contribute to an analysis of the connections between the personal and the political,
and the impossibility of imagining culture or identity from an exclusively local perspective. Our
country, then, is variously created and critiqued by many famous dissenting voices that share cameo
roles with more intimate dissenters that Lawson has both invented and remembered. The title
essay/story for example, is as much about a reading group of ordinary women as it is about Beauvoir.
And I guess this is why I found this essay quite disappointing given its apparent subject. While it is
always difficult to do justice to an icon, particularly a feminist one, I found myself unable to take an
interest in anything her various reading group characters had to say, either about Simone or themselves.
Nevertheless, her writing versatility, her astute observation and cultural critique is evident every time
Lawson's analysis of the ways in which de Beauvoir hasn't 'died' in Australia intercepts the agonies of
the reading group characters. Similarly, the deeply reflective essay, 'How Raymond Williams Died in
Australia', is a brilliant discussion on cultural institutions and loss. In this collection there are many
moments when Lawson is at her best and, even when her dissenting voice seems muted in the words of
fictional others, you can't help admiring her constant self-questioning and searching for a way forward.
Shirley Tucker is a Lecturer in the Contemporary Studies Program at the Ipswich campus of the
University of Queensland.
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