Holden Walker reviews Thanks for Having Me by Emma Darragh
Thanks for Having Me
By Emma Darragh
Reviewed by HOLDEN WALKER
I cannot say I’ve ever had the eureka moment in which I found myself lost in a novel that felt like it had been written for me or had been written about the world I knew personally. Perhaps my interest in Australian fiction has unintentionally favoured rural towns, characterised by their isolation and unforgiving natural landscapes. Although these stories come close to offering something familiar, their small-town melodramas still feel worlds apart, for I do not know them in the same way I know the lower food court in the central Wollongong shopping centre, the one accessible when you get off the escalator in front of Coles, the one Vivian visits in the opening lines of Emma Darragh’s 2024 short story cycle, Thanks For Having Me.
Thanks For Having Me feels like a photo album, where every captured moment is a detailed but temporally scattered snapshot of working-class life, featuring nostalgic recollections of playing ‘doughnut on a string’ and finding hidden Christmas presents. Darragh creates a dynamic depiction of youth from the 1960s to the 2020s through strategically placed allusions to recognisable traditions, routines, and cultural attitudes. These moments of familiarity and recognition elicit intense empathy for protagonists Mary Anne, Vivian, and Evie, each of whom personifies a different epoch. While Darragh provides ongoing narration of her characters’ contemporary lives, this is often intercut with memories that create a dynamic portrayal of girlhood and womanhood. Reflecting the spirit of the times, this is a coming-of-age narrative spanning almost sixty years.
Darragh’s rendering of the Illawarra feels incredibly immersive. The short story collection transports readers across postcodes, from Vivian’s central Wollongong apartment to Mary Anne’s Berkeley home, and through bus stop, car park, and RSL club in between. Symbolic of Mary Anne’s attempted but ultimately failed escape to Sydney, Thanks For Having Me remains isolated from any grand notions of metropolitan Australia; instead, it reads as a love song to an often-overlooked city. The text’s emphasis on place as a narrative device serves as the ‘tie that binds’ the three revolving protagonists to their history, identity, and ultimately, to each other.
Darragh’s character voice and perspective, accurately and effortlessly reflect the zeitgeist occupied by her protagonists. This style is cleverly integrated into Evie’s narration when she describes Vivian’s apartment as ‘urbancore’ and describes Vivian’s tea towels as ‘aesthetic’. Character perspective is further developed in the values and beliefs of each protagonist, influenced by their environment and reminiscent of the cultural landscape they inhabit. This is explicitly seen in Vivian’s allusions to disordered eating behaviours in her early adolescence, catalysed by her interest in popular magazines and the supermodel culture of the 1990s.
Darragh’s rotating protagonists create the capacity for readers to see not only themselves but also their mothers, grandmothers, and daughters mirrored in the text, an effect that is achieved not only through her commitment to dense and complex characterisation but also through her signature use of compounding minor details, all of which contribute to the composition of stories that resemble genuine memories. For me, this technique was most effectively executed in the characterisation of Mary Anne, who, despite bearing no biographical resemblance to anyone I have ever known, reminded me considerably of both my mother and my maternal grandmother. Perhaps it was something in her affinity for chocolate or That’s Life magazine; but whatever the case, I could not overlook the radiance in Darragh’s depiction of women inhabiting a fictional yet vibrantly realised Illawarra.
In addition to fostering an impressive emotional connection between reader and text, Thanks For Having Me offers valuable commentary on the nature of familial relationships, often more specifically, those between mothers and daughters. Further, an unexpected but impactful theme that also emerged in the text was the cycle of unintended negative influence parents may have on their children.
When a story is focalised through the perspectives of the women as children, we are exposed to memories that portray the mother-daughter relationship in a manner that highlights subtle and unintentional cruelty. These moments include when Mary Anne burns her hands dropping a cake and is met with scolding instead of sympathy. Similarly, when Vivian buys herself a tube of lipstick that makes her feel confident and pretty, Mary Anne implies she doesn’t like it by telling Vivian she wasted her money. Each character’s childhood perspectives emphasise the distance between herself and her mother.
It is not until years later that both Mary Anne and Vivian experience the impossibility of being a perfect parent, more specifically, the impossibility of flawlessly executing the level of patience and kindness that they wished they had been on the receiving end of in their own youth. Realising this reality, Darragh explores the duality of motherhood, the moments of connection and triumph but also the moments of conflict and disappointment. The impossibility of perfection is beautifully personified through Vivian’s character. From the beginning of the collection, it is evident that Vivian desperately wants to be a good mother to Evie; however, her short temper and violent disposition repeatedly undermine this goal. This dichotomy is first alluded to when Vivian’s desire to welcome Evie into her home leads her to overspend at the supermarket. Directly following, as Vivian tried to leave the shopping centre, her frustration with a persistent ‘chugger’ causes her to lose control and punch him.
Vivian’s history of being quick to anger is further demonstrated in her memory of hitting Evie at the beach after she refused to put on sunscreen. Darragh’s cleverly integrated flashback adds essential context to the strained relationship between mother and daughter. Vivian’s loss of emotional control is later emphasised when it is suggested that Vivian hit Evie harder than she realised, leaving a painful bruise that remains visible days after the incident. Despite this, it remains evident that Vivian loves Evie dearly and tries her best to be a good mother to her. However, Vivian is a victim of the same reality that has impacted the generations of women who preceded her: the impossibility of perfection and the inevitable navigation of the mistakes and misfortunes that arise when attempting to raise a child.
Thanks For Having Me is an intimate and nostalgic rendition of the lives of multiple generations of women in the Illawarra as they navigate both the joys and sorrows of girlhood, womanhood and motherhood. The collection is coloured by its vibrant narrative voice and its skilled execution of multiple perspectives, each revealing the coming-of-age experiences of its three protagonists. The text examines the complex and turbulent nature of familial relationships across eras, navigating the subject with empathy, nuance and a touch of Darragh’s radiant sense of humour. Above all, Thanks for Having Me is a text that made me, and with any luck, will make others, feel seen and understood.