Ahhh, some homegrown talent. This is going to be a challenging blog due to the subject matter. How to wreck a ‘G’ rating blog in one easy lesson. I promise to try and get back that ‘G’ rating fairly soon.
Merridy Eastman was born in Canberra and ended up in Sydney with a promising acting career that had stalled. She visited the job centre and found herself working in a brothel as a receptionist. Not a very promising premise for a book, but it comes out very well. I was very sad to finish this book and wanted it to go on forever. The writing was lively and engaging. The characters were drawn so nicely that I could just about see them in front of me and hear them. I’ve lead a sheltered life and I love reading biographies and autobiographies to find out about people. Normally I only learn about a handful of people but this book had such a plethora of personalities and so nicely drawn it was a gold mine and such a shame to finish.
Merridy makes no secret about her new job, she tells her flatmates all about it, she even tells her parents. She is very enthusiastic about it while her parents, although accepting of her decision, are rather more subdued. The enthusiasm for the job and for the girls she meets is wonderful to see and the whole book gives a totally new light to ‘working girls’.
A quick google indicates she had another book published in 2006 about her time in London and that she is writing another book about her life in Bavaria where she lives with her husband and child. I can’t wait to read these books.
Warnings: This seems so strange to be giving warnings about a book like this but there are many. Swear words galore, I was listening to an interview with Tony Martin about his new book A Nest of Occasionals who had been challenged by the number of swear words in his book so he counted them and came up with the grand total of 84 swear words. I couldn’t possibly count the swear words in There’s a Bear in There as I’d get distracted and end up reading the whole book again but I’m prepared to bet there’s far more than 84. There’s numerous references to sex in so many ways, it’s an education in itself but an education that can only be for the more mature, discerning reader.