Ahoy keen book-clubbers and wary landlubbers for this month’s book review of the darkly chilling and grimly funny Mrs Hopkins!

 

From 1919 England (our June book The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club) we’re transported further back in time to dreary 1871 Sydney, where everything is terrible for anyone who isn’t rich. Scaling down that class ladder is Mrs Constance Hopkins, impoverished, alone and mourning the loss of her young daughter, has been scrounging for any paid work she can find in her position. As fate would have it, she is hired to be the new School-Mistress at the Biloela Industrial School for Girls; an opportunity she relishes to bestow her maternal care and wisdom on the incarcerated young women and girls to make them fit for society.

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Of course, this Sound of Music fantasy evaporates quickly on her first day as she is greeted by her would-be pupils in a hail of insults and obscenities, spat at and robbed of her meagre possessions.

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The education sector isn’t for everyone.

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As Mrs Hopkins tries, God bless her, to implement structure and foster trust in the young women at Biloela, she begins to understand their rebellious behavior (which she believes to be a product of being influenced by their criminal parents) is also a result of the hostile and depressing environment of being kept inside literal jail cells on an otherwise uninhabited island (lockdowns, amiright?). The ‘school’ is so under-resourced that even essentials are in such short supply that they’re forced to eat stale food or starve, the reason for this shortage being is that the girls deserve no better. It would make a saint crack, let alone someone going through puberty.

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When a classroom fight escalates to small riot, Mrs Hopkins panics and comes up with a plan for everyone’s known family members to visit the school on a Special Visiting Day For Mothers; celebratory day filled with such an epic amount of food, drink, gifts, games and general revelry (think Hogwarts Christmas which takes literal magic to produce) that it can only end in abject failure.

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This obvious pipe dream works like a charm on the girls desperate to see their families again, and Mrs Hopkins doggedly pursues on making it happen with the supposed help from Superintendent Mr Crabback, a spineless hypocrite full of more hot wind than integrity, who proves to be more of an obstacle than anything else.

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Looming in the background of all of this, however, is a growing ominous presence on the island that gradually manifests into the restless spirits of the dead who won’t leave until a grave sin is amended.

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As the days go on, a series of events unfold that will have dire consequences for anyone with a guilty conscience…

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It is difficult to put Mrs Hopkins in one category. This book combines the winning elements of a historical thriller, tragedy, comedy of errors and touches on a real time in Australian history that is largely unknown. Shirley Barrett is a master of creating worlds separate from larger society that reflect the ridiculousness of it with a surrealist dark humor, all without making any of her characters seem less human.

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It is a huge loss to know that this is her final book, but she has left us with a treasure.