The Steele Diaries (Vintage, 2008) by Wendy James offers readers an enjoyable yet thought-provoking story with strong, well-defined women in the central roles.
The Steele Diaries
When Ruth returns to her family home after the death of her father, she receives an envelope containing her mother’s diaries. Her mother Zelda died when Ruth was a child, leaving behind a legacy of artwork and uncertainty about the circumstances surrounding her death. Reading the diaries causes her to rethink her relationship with both parents and her own priorities.
Zelda’s diaries, started as a teenager, reveal her conflicts and confusions about her relationship with her own mother Annie and the demands and challenges of being a wife and mother herself. The daughter of two famous and talented artists, Zelda is adopted out as an infant to her parents’ wealthy patrons, Jules and Paul.
Annie rebels against her own stark upbringing to embrace the life of an artist. She must live with the consequences of her choice to focus on her own needs rather than the needs of others.
As the lives Annie, Zelda and Ruth are shared, the inner conflicts that have motivated their choices and the price they have paid for following their hearts are revealed.
Women, Motherhood and Creativity
The Steele Diaries explores the challenges of motherhood as the choices of each woman impacts on her own daughter. The central characters particularly highlight the conflicts between creative passion and the focus on daily minutiae that forms such a central part of every mother’s day.
In addition to the dominant examples of motherhood presented by Annie, Zelda and Ruth, several secondary characters broaden the portrayal of motherhood. Zelda and Ruth both have friends who deal with the complications of an unexpected pregnancy. Annie and Zelda must deal with mothers-in-law whose passions lie with country practicality rather than creative expression. Jules’ role as Zelda’s adoptive mother adds further complexity to the novel.
While the male characters play a generally peripheral role, they do expand the novel’s focus as Annie, Zelda and Ruth must also resolve their roles as a wife, partner or daughter.
The three central characters are heartbreakingly real. Their personalities and decisions significantly contribute to struggles and challenges they face, yet they deal with the consequences with strength of character and determination to do the best that they can. The novel never becomes self-indulgent or self-pitying, although the characters certainly have moments where they wish their lives could have followed a different path.
Readers will admire the desire of Annie, Zelda and Ruth to live a life of no apologies. They will applaud their refusal to be dominated by the perceptions and expectations of others, even if they do not agree with the choices they make.
An Exciting and Significant Work of Contemporary Fiction
The merging of three different periods of time through the lives of Annie, Zelda and Ruth is handled well. Readers connect with Ruth through a narrative style, Zelda is revealed through her diaries and Annie through letters and the recollections of others. The background setting of the Sydney art scene from the thirties to the seventies and Australian rural life provides additional themes and points of interest.
The Steele Diaries is a novel about and for women. It is an indication of the skill of the author that she has created such strong, spirited female characters around which to centre her story without turning the novel into a feministic diatribe.
Wendy James has combined the choices and demands of motherhood and likeable characters to create a novel that is not only enjoyable but also challenging. Readers should look forward with anticipation to further offerings from this talented author.
The Steele Diaries (ISBN: 978-1-74051-384-5, 361 pages)
Further reading:
Book Review: East of the Sun by Julia Gregson
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