The Monkey's Mask

We turned up at the Museum of Contemporary Art for this month's book reading talk ... The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter. Even as a backcloth to one of the exhibits in the Vivid festival of light, the MCA looked strangely dark. That was because it was closed. We had turned up a week early.

Still ... the book is a decent (if quick) read. It's a private investigator tale told in blank verse. The author loses the plot half way through, takes a less than interesting excursion to Brisbane for no discernible story reason and never truly finds her way back. It's not wholly surprising, therefore, that the verse novel peters out rather unsatisfactorily. It simply stops, unresolved; nobody paying any price for the murders (except the dead folk, of course) so that's a bit annoying, even if it is in keeping with some of Chandler's finest. But the poetry stands up throughout, which makes the work worth reading for that reason alone.