Sisters have long been at the heart of great literature and drama. From the March girls of Little Women to the fraught sibling dynamics in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, sisterhood is a bond of intense devotion, rivalry and lifelong entanglement. Or, as Toni Morrison put it, “A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.” This paradox is central to Gutsy Girls, Josie McSkimming’s memoir about her sister, the legendary poet Dorothy Porter.
To Australia, Dorothy Porter was a rock star poet whose verse novels – particularly The Monkey’s Mask (1994), the world’s first crime thriller written in verse – carved space for Australian poetry in the public consciousness. But to Josie McSkimming, she was always Dod.
Gutsy Girls looks at the tangled intimacy of their sisterhood, offering an alternative perspective to Chester Porter’s 2003 memoir, which, according to McSkimming, “sugar-coated” the family’s domestic life. “This book is about her life and my life wound around each other, and how her life slowly altered the trajectory of mine,” McSkimming reflects.
McSkimming, the youngest of three sisters – Dod, Mary and Josie – grew up in Mona Vale (NSW), where childhood consisted of long bushwalks, summers at Blackheath’s municipal pool and inhaling second-hand smoke in the back of cars. Their father, barrister Chester Porter, was a dominant, volatile figure, while their mother, Jean, a science teacher, provided warmth, intellect and patience. Chester’s mercurial moods kept the family in a state of hyper-awareness, which meant that each sister had to develop her own survival strategy: “[Mary] provoked, I retreated, while Dod – worried and terrified herself – unfailingly tried to protect us all.”
It’s no surprise, then, that their childhood experiences shaped them in wildly different ways. Josie, pragmatic and socially conscious, gravitated towards evangelical Christianity and became a social worker; Mary traversed through relationships; Dorothy, restless and magnetic, blew up the literary world.
As Gutsy Girls progresses, McSkimming charts the evolving dynamic between herself and Dorothy. A train journey marks a shift: “Dod became my trusted and closed oyster.” These moments of levity – late-night conversations, menthol cigarettes, gossip sessions dissecting their family life – is what makes this memoir a page-turner.
Later, birdwatching, and more love, relationships and faith enter the narrative. By the time the memoir reaches Dorothy’s cancer diagnosis and eventual death, there is a palpable sense of reckoning – not just with loss, but with the resounding effects of their upbringing.
Structurally, Gutsy Girls mirrors Dorothy Porter’s own literary evolution, with each chapter aligning with a key period in her work – Akhenaten (1992), What a Piece of Work (1999), Wild Surmise (2002). Porter’s poetry is woven throughout, lending the memoir a haunting, lyrical quality – though for readers unfamiliar with Porter’s work, this structure may at times feel fragmented.
McSkimming includes archival photographs of family homes and some pretty cute baby pictures; it’s a nice personal touch.
Throughout the prose is fluid, scholarly (you’ll find nods to Australian literary figures) and evocative, examining how family – particularly the push-pull of sibling relationships – shapes identity. Though ostensibly about Dorothy, Gutsy Girls is just as much about Josie: her childhood in Dorothy’s orbit, the lingering impact of their relationship and her own evolution.
She does not shy away from contradictions, portraying Dorothy with deep admiration while acknowledging the emotional distance and occasional cruelty that can exist between siblings. This tension – between love and exclusion – elevates Gutsy Girls beyond a standard literary homage.
Read: Book review: The Knowing, Madeleine Ryan
McSkimming’s memoir reminds us that behind every literary giant is a constellation of intimacies – family members, sisters – left to make sense of brilliance, distance, love and loss.
Gutsy Girls, Josie McSkimming
Publisher: UQP
ISBN: 9780702268724
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288pp
Publication date: 4 February 2025
RRP: $34.99
