Indelible Ink
by Fiona McGregor

Atlantic Books (e-book)

Indelible Ink was named the 2011 book of the year by Australian newspaper The Age. I can see why: it is a meaty, clever, provocative family saga about life in Sydney. At the centre is the wonderfully realised heroine, Marie King. Aged 59 as the novel starts, the wealthy, sheltered Marie is 'divorced, with money in her wallet, and she had never been out alone on a Saturday night'. It is this particular weekend that Marie chooses to enter a tattoo parlour, with a 'serpentine signage' on the door. She meets Neil, the tattoo artist, and decides to get an ankleband of jasmine. When Neil asks what's the occasion, she replies: 'I don't know. To my freedom. I'm free for the first time in forty years.' Marie's three upwardly mobile children are horrified by the emergence of their mother's inner Axl Rose. As Marie begins to form her own opinions for the first time in decades (on Muslims, world and Australian politics, feminism and the body), she finds herself drawn to Rhys, another (female) tattoo artist. Indelible Ink has been compared to Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap, only with less sex and more money. I prefer McGregor's subtler take on Australian social mores. A wonderful, weighty read.