At 196 pages, Passing Remarks by Helen Hodgman (1945-2022) only just scrapes into my definition of a novella but I read it anyway for Novellas in November, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Rebecca of Bookish Beck. Passing Remarks (1998) was Helen Hodgman's penultimate novel (1945-2022), and it is quite different to her other books that I've read.

Blues Skies (1976) is, despite its title, a sardonic portrait of marriage and motherhood in Tasmanian suburbia; Jack and Jill (1978) is a macabre twist on Tasmanian Gothic; and Hodgman's last novel The Bad Policeman (2001) is a tragi-comedy about an anti-hero with an heroic streak. (See my reviews here and here and here.) Though impossible to read now without the awareness that its preoccupation with ageing foreshadowed the author's own long, slow descent into dependence on others due to Parkinson's Disease — Passing Remarks is, as I showed in this Sensational Snippet, often outrageously funny.

Passing Remarks is also a novel of lesbian love. There is not much about Hodgman's private life in the public domain, but she married young and had a daughter within a marriage that appears to have lasted quite some time. (His Wikipedia page makes no mention of his personal life, except that he re-married in 1984). But in an interview at the SMH on the reissue of Jack and Jill in the Text Classics series, Hodgman revealed that she had fallen in love with a woman in what was described as a catastrophic affair that consumed her emotionally. Whether there were autobiographical elements in Passing Remarks or not, Hodgman writes convincingly about the lesbian milieu, and the problems that confront a May-September relationship.

The story is narrated mostly from the intimate perspective of Rosemary, whose breakup with Billie has precipitated a mid-life crisis; but told also from the point of view of Billie, the much younger lover who has left her.

For Rosemary, the break-up is a catastrophic moment of truth. It's not triggered by any dramatic moment, only Billie's desire to visit her mother who's living a hippie lifestyle in Bundagen on the NSW north coast, and then to travel north, to work perhaps in Byron Bay, or even go as far as Cairns. Billie sets off on her Harley insouciant about this departure, but it sends a chill down Rosemary's spine. She worries that it is her minor signs of bodily ageing that remind Billie of her mother.

What's the matter?' But Rosemary cannot tell Billie she is scared of being alone, not necessarily in the immediate future but in the longer term. Old and alone. Ill and lonely. This morning it seems possible people she's always dismissed as pathetic have a point. Stay married and live longer. Stay together and live.

But Hodgman doesn't dwell on it, Rosemary's inner dialogue undercuts itself.

They'd be printing it on bumperstickers next. Rosemary tells herself to stop it. You get a cat and you cope, Rosemary tells herself firmly. Or a dog, if you must. A dog is always pleased to see you when you get home from work. What she needs is a drink. She knows alcohol is a depressant, but, quite honestly, in the short term at least, it does the trick. Luckily there's still a bottle of champagne in the fridge. She opens it, hands a glass to Billie.

'To your travels,' she says and drinks.

'Cheers, lover,' says Billie. And Rosemary reminds herself that she'd rather be dead than totter handcuffed and in tandem towards the grave. (p.16)

As she reflects on major problem in the relationship — the age difference — Rosemary revisits incidents from their time together that hint at other issues.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/11/24/passing-remarks-1998-by-helen-hodgman/ ( )