Attack of the Zombie Girls
This theme had its impetus in a novel I read nearly two years ago, which led to a sustained rant in my journal. To wit: “Unwed eighteen year old girl has baby, gives it up for adoption, is hospitalized with post-natal depression, lives among weird kids, discharged to family Christmas – roaring father, shrieking demented granny, retarded brother. Papa roars. Granny shrieks girl is dead and she stinks. Brother clings and pesters. Girlfriend drags her to parties. Former boyfriend nags at her about baby. She vomits. He’s happy. She realizes he thinks she’s won: the whole idea was to make the woman vomit. Granny gets sicker. Novel ends. The world outside the mental ward and the family does not exist – I derived no idea of the time-period of the novel. The protagonist knows what she does not want – her miserable situation. But she makes no progress away from it.” Much lauded for its sensitivity, quirkiness, etc – it reminded me of the title of a critique of Joyce Carol Oates female characters of the 60s and 70s “A Necessary Blankness”. It probably wouldn’t have ticked me off quite so much but that it was praised and ballyhooed and my reaction was, like, do we need more of this? I know elements of our culture still have trouble with women who are not blank and passive, but I thought overall we’d evolved.

Therefore I had the idea of a “no zombie girls” (as in “no polluting”) page, wherein I could highlight books with young female characters who were active and vital. But I was having trouble getting round to it, until along came the Blog.

First entry would be Tessa Duder’s Alex Quartet (Alex, Alex in Winter, Alessandra: Alex in Rome, Songs for Alex), four novels about a fictional New Zealand champion swimmer in 1960, and one of the best portraits I’ve read of gifted youth – both in Alex and the young man who later comes into her life, who is an opera singer with potential for stardom. Alex is multitalented – she’s a performer as well as an athlete, and is aiming for law. She’s intense, and a risk-taker, constantly pushing her abilities to their limit and beyond, achieving and failing and achieving again. And by virtue of being who she is – tall, athletic, outspoken, and lower-class – she comes repeatedly into conflict with the conservative New Zealand society of 1959/1960 – the historical setting is one of the most interesting aspects of the book.