Reading this novel is like following an intricate pattern for macramé. Not only is it a story based on the research the author carried out for her own Doctorate of Creative Arts; but her main character, Olivia Wells, is portrayed as carrying out research for her thesis, based on a mid-20th century writer, Gloria Graham, who lived in Brisbane during WWII.

The plot moves between Olivia discovering links other Brisbane people have with Gloria Graham, to wartime life in Brisbane, which hosted thousands of US servicemen on leave or serving in the city. Lennons, a hotel fronting George Street in the 1940s, became the place to meet, and was particularly popular with General MacArthur’s staff.

The novel’s strands involve the fictionalisation of much of Myers’ research for her own thesis. She read from many archived sources, including recollections by women who had worked as drivers for the Americans, or waitresses at Lennons. Myers drew on personal and academic histories, memoirs, family war stories and anecdotes told to her at social gatherings to create her interwoven cast of fictional characters.

The famed animosity between Aussie soldiers and American GIs plays a large part in this novel; as does the murder of a young woman on the banks of the Brisbane River during the war.

The segregation of black American GIs to clubs and pubs on the south side of the river; the romances between the GIs and Brisbane women; and even the crimes policed by the US military police pull even more threads of this plot together.

Descriptions of wartime Brisbane, as well as the contemporary city, ground the story as Olivia struggles with her thesis, her love life and her own family history.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville