Nora does not appear to have a job (Wikipedia says she does but not the novel I read) but lives a comfortable existence punctuated by bike rides to visit friends in other share houses, lots drinking and dope (marijuana) smoking, road trips, days spend lounging at the public swimming baths with her friends, afternoon naps, cups of tea in suburban kitchens, sitting on verandahs and musing, the retelling of dreams, and helping her friends through their different relationship and personal crises.Ĭritics of the novel have said it reads like the author’s personal diary entries and I can see what they’re getting at (Garner lived in Melbourne during this period of time and was most famously sacked as a teacher in 1972 for teaching sex education to her class of 13-year-olds, something that Nora would undoubtedly be comfortable doing). Set in the inner city suburbs of Melbourne in the mid-1970s, Monkey Grip tells the story of single-mum Nora’s relationship with heroin addict and writer/actor Javo set against the back drop of house-sharing, addiction, loose parenting and easy sex. If any fellow bloggers or bookworms out there can recommend any other books that are about drug addiction or where one of the principal characters is a junkie, please drop me a line with the title and author – Grip by Helen Garner “Confessions of an English Opium Eater” by Thomas De Quincey (1821) Burroughs (1953), an autobiographical account of the writer’s life as an addict in the 19, which begins with Burroughs as user, pusher and petty thief in New York. I’ve compiled a reading list with the aim of writing an essay of sorts on the topic of “The Junky’s place in literature”.Ĭurrently I am reading “Junky” by William S. (A REVIEW OF MONKEY GRIP IS AT THE END OF THIS POST) The title of the book refers to their relationship, which despite Nora’s attempts to pull away is as tight as a monkey grip.

Monkey Grip tells the story of Nora, a single-mum living in Melbourne in the mid-1970s who falls in love with a blue-eyed junkie called Javo.

My interest in this subject was sparked after reading “Monkey Grip”, a celebrated Australian novel by Helen Garner.

The junky in fictionalised accounts is often the artist, or the poet, or at the very least someone who has lived an interesting life. There is a fascination with them in literature, at odds, in a way, with how one sees the junky in the real world – usually the beggar in unwashed rags sleeping in an alleyway. The heroin junky seems an enigmatic and romanticised character, living by their wits on the edges of society and always in the grip of their addiction. For whatever reason people do things, I’ve become hooked (pardon the pun) on the idea of reading a wide range of books about heroin addicts and their place in literature.

Monkey grip book