The Midnight Dress feels like a big, worldly idea wrapped up in a small town story. Karen Foxlee’s second novel is a brilliant, clever, eerie tale, and exceptionally hard to put down. The narrative switches between past and present, and starts, intriguingly, at the finish. ‘Will you forgive me if I tell you the ending?’ Foxlee begins, setting the tone for the entire story in one deftly executed sentence, and you feel that yes, you probably will.
Rose and her alcoholic father are drifters, travelling from town to town with a caravan, stopping when they run out of petrol. They stop, this time, in a small cane-growing town in the humid north of Queensland. Rose, our redheaded, angry protagonist is afraid of human contact, desperate to be alone, yet easily persuaded into doing things she doesn’t want to do. While her father is sobering up, Rose attends school, and lets her guard down just long enough to be befriended by Pearl Kelly. Pearl is beautiful, happy, and talkative; literally the antithesis of Rose, who has always felt removed and awkward, who keeps to herself as much as possible.
Somehow, impossibly, Pearl charms Rose enough to convince her to participate in the Harvest Festival. A long-standing tradition, the Festival is the highlight of the year. Every teenage girl must have a dress; someone will be crowned Queen, and preparation for it preoccupies the town’s teenagers for months. But Rose has no money for a dress, so Pearl suggests she visit Miss Edie Baker, local recluse, dressmaker and suspected witch on the edge of town. Edie and Rose set out to make the perfect dress, and in the process the old woman narrates her parents’ great love story, her history, and how she came to be who she is. Rose also learns of a secret in the mountain behind the old woman’s house.
The Midnight Dress is a masterful combination of character and place. From the ancillary small-town characters to the important figures in Rose’s new life, there’s a real depth to the people of this story. Similarly, Foxlee’s imaginative descriptions of the cane fields, the secluded beaches, and importantly the mountainous bush land make it easy to feel you know this town as well as you do your own.The town feels very real, alive with history.
Edie and Rose create a dress out of bits of fabric by patching old dresses together, and The Midnight Dress is much the same. The novel focuses on Pearl and Rose’s friendship; their love for one another, and yet the history of the old woman’s life, the small town gossip, the mystery that ties the whole story together – each could be a story in their own right. Foxlee stitches them together with ease, like old scraps of fabric, and creates something truly special from the pieces; a highly enjoyable, clever book.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Midnight Dress
By Karen Foxlee
Paperback, 336pp, RRP $29.95
ISBN: 978 0 70 22 4 9
University of Queensland Press
