I bought Sunnyside by Joanna Murray-Smith ages ago, when she gave an author talk at my local library, and now I’m feeling rather a fool for having left it so long to read it. It reminds me that there are some real treasures on my groaning TBR shelf – about 600 books at last count – but I keep adding to it for fear that if I don’t buy a book when I see it, it may vanish off the booksellers shelves because they are so merciless about ditching literary fiction, no matter how good it is.

If you saw my Sensational Snippet from Sunnyside, you will know that the novel is a comedy of manners satirising The Good Life. Murray-Smith is a well-known playwright here in Melbourne, and she has chosen what is obviously Mt Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula as the setting for a privileged suburb called Sunnyside, with less stylish Frankston masquerading as nearby Deptford. The main industry in Sunnyside is real estate, and the annual community event is the Real Estate Agents’ Race, aping the inner-city waiters’ race but with estate agents running the course carrying Open For Inspection boards.

The novel begins with the dinner-party revelation that Molly, wife of David and mother of Justin, has been enjoying herself with the man who cleans their pool. This triggers an existential crisis among their set, some wondering if they too are missing out on sexual adventure and self-fulfilment, and others analysing the purpose and direction of their own marriages. New temptations arise: a sexy old school friend arrives in Sunnyside, and a university lecturer gets perilously close to a student. Children on the cusp of adolescence have their own existential crises too: school, of course, but also dismay about parental behaviour, and anxiety about contemporary issues and their own powerlessness in the face of adult indifference.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2013/09/21/sunnyside-by-joanna-murray-smith/ ( )