Rosa

This entertaining, quirky yet profound quasi-memoir is full of delightful stories about a determined and loving young English girl who marries a larrikin boy from Bondi. He tells her: 'You'll like it, Rosa, St Kilda's by the beach, we can go swimming. And we can go on picnics, take the Lambretta to visit the Dandenongs.' Rosa assumed the Dandenongs were 'Mr and Mrs', another of these weird Australian names, didn't sound like a Jewish family … As British as Earl Grey tea, Rosa has spent most of her life in Melbourne. Her children and grandchildren are all Australian-born, as was Alan, her writer husband. But Rosa is hesitant about an unconditional commitment to Vegemite, mateship and the ANZAC legend; she remains a perennial migrant, often amused by her memories, here presented with a deliberate overlay of lies and licence. Her family's history is nearer to Dickens than the shtetls of Eastern Europe; Rosa herself recalls Dunkirk and the Blitz. Beyond the conservatism of 1950s London that she escaped, Rosa flings open the windows and doors to invite the reader into her Anglo-Australian-Jewish family. She refrains from delving into deep psychological examinations of what it means to be an only child, an only grandchild, a reluctant Jewish teenager, and muse to a man whose terrible childhood scarred him for life; the 'clues' are all there for the curious reader to discover.