Ronnie Scott’s first novel, The Adversary, was published in the unfortunate time of April 2020, one of many debut writers whose dreams of launching their book and appearing at events were dashed by what felt like endless lockdowns. Scott’s new novel, Shirley, claims back this time. Shirley is set in Melbourne, mostly in the weeks between the end of the Black Summer bushfires and the beginning of the pandemic. Many Melbournian readers may struggle to return to this eerie time, but it is balanced with a transient feeling between the Meredith and Golden Plains festivals.

The protagonist, a woman in her thirties, has recently bought an apartment in Collingwood, and becomes intrigued by her new neighbour, a woman who is having a baby with her employee. In the weeks of endless bushfire smoke, life becomes stranger, as the protagonist’s boyfriend breaks up with her to explore his interest in men, and her mother sells the vacant family home, Shirley. There, her mother, a TV food personality, had been photographed years earlier under gruesome circumstances. The truth of why her mother was covered in blood in this photo and why she subsequently left Australia is buried deep within the novel, though there are many clues throughout. Despite being written in the first person, this is a novel with a distant and protracted writing style, never quite landing on exactly how the narrator feels owing to many years of being disengaged instead of vulnerable.

While Scott relies heavily on referencing specific places in Melbourne (and many vegan cookbooks too in passages about the narrator’s exploration of cooking detached from her mother), instead of using more vibrant prose to evoke the essence of these places, this is a captivating story for fans of Laura McPhee-Browne and Victoria Hannan, and anyone craving a new generation of Garner-esque Melbourne literary writers.