Prose

There’s a randomness and whimsy to this collection, and anyone familiar with Linda, will expect exactly that. It is also represented in the cover art-a zentangle, aptly name ’Goldfish in the Garden’.Prose begins at a nurses’ reunion where the usual entertainments slip away as Pathfinder Robyn amazes with a tale as disjointed as ever was told. Brooks relates the in-between stories, the ones best described as ’stuff I never told you.’ Walking down an Adelaide street carrying a box and kicking a hammer in an effort to carry the things left behind by removalists. A patient Indian Postmaster’s hilarious explanation of the parcel post system to an insistent customer. There are memories of a muddy creek, a barbed wire fence and the time she was maid for a day at an elegant mansion in leafy upper-crust Sydney’s North Shore. Untold stories from nursing days. A top-lofty son is embarrassed by his gentle mother’s dementia and receives a lesson in grace. A vigilante tenant prunes a hedge and the neighbourhood is not amused.