REVIEW: REVOLUTIONARY BABY: Strange Tales from the Twentieth Century

Born in the same year as the author I found some of these stories echoed my own confusion when the personal coincided with the political. These “strange tales” are sometimes gripping, at times nostalgic and always thought-provoking.

Women’s liberation is just one of the “revolutions” addressed in Revolutionary Baby. The author is careful not to side with women only. When Max in the first story attempts to seduce an unwilling young Judith, she is rescued by Gabro who is, perhaps unsurprisingly, European.

As the first female in my family to attend university, I recognised Judith’s mother’s description of university study as “sham-work, not real work” in the first story, “Beyond Engagement”.

Having participated in the anti-Vietnam protest marches, I particularly enjoyed the second story “Revolutionary Baby”. The single-mindedness of a heavily pregnant woman’s insistence on taking part in a violent demonstration is counterpointed by the confusion of her solicitor husband contending with different voices: his father “you can’t let women talk to you like that” or his mother “you shouldn’t have married her, she’s a slut” (p. 42). Hamilton is empathetic with the perspective of both genders ensuring that her book will appeal to both male and female readers.

Locations for the stories are varied and vitally important to the narrative. Hamilton describes the jacarandas “bursting into purple on the Birchgrove waterfront” (p. 68). And evoking Bangkok in another story, “Rain falls in October, the gutters fill, the laneways overflow”. (p 145).

The stories that are most poignant are those set in various Sydney suburbs – or is this bias on my part because I grew up in Sydney? The following passage encapsulates an attitude shared by many women of my generation: “She wanted a revolution all right but it wasn’t one with slogans and arguments and men fighting each other over who was top dog in the park. She wanted a revolution where people looked out for each other … where people took care of the weak … gave each other what they needed”. (p. 37).

I strongly recommend this book to the Baby Boomer generation and the one following it. I’d like to think that the next generation would appreciate learning more about the revolutions both in Australia and abroad that simultaneously stimulated and confused the generations of their parents.