The Dressmaker

Set in a small, insular town on the Australian plains during the 1950s, the novel follows Myrtle "Tilly" Dunnage, a talented dressmaker who returns to the community that cast her out as a child. After roughly 20 years away, during which she worked as a dressmaker in Europe, Tilly arrives on a Greyhound bus one winter night carrying suitcases and a Singer sewing machine. She has come to care for her mother, Molly, known locally as "Mad Molly," who lives in a shabby weatherboard house atop a hill overlooking the town of Dungatar.

Tilly finds Molly emaciated, delusional, and living in squalor. She bathes her mother, scrubs the house, and nurses Molly back to a measure of health despite violent resistance. Dungatar is a tightly knit web of petty rivalries and entrenched hierarchies. Sergeant Farrat, the local policeman who secretly designs and wears women's clothing, becomes Tilly's closest ally. The McSwiney family, headed by Edward, the night cart man (the person responsible for collecting household waste), and his wife Mae, lives in caravans near the town tip and occupies the lowest social rung. Their eldest son, Teddy, the town's charming football star, begins courting Tilly with persistence. Beula Harridene, the town gossip, announces Tilly's return to every housewife in the back streets, and hostility follows Tilly everywhere. On her first shopping trip, the women overcharge her, the general store owner forces her to settle Molly's old debts, and Nancy Pickett, a childhood tormentor, confronts her at the chemist. Only a few show kindness: Irma Almanac, who has severe rheumatoid arthritis, reveals she had been secretly sending food to Molly for years.

As Tilly moves through town, traumatic memories surface. Stewart Pettyman, the son of Councillor Evan Pettyman, was her chief tormentor at school, sexually assaulting her and threatening to kill her mother if she told. One day, after another assault, Stewart charged at Myrtle headfirst, his signature attack. She stepped aside, and he ran into a brick wall, broke his neck, and died. Edward McSwiney witnessed the assault from a silo roof and testified, but Evan refused to accept the truth. The full backstory eventually emerges: Evan is Myrtle's biological father. He had seduced Molly, an innocent spinster, followed her to Dungatar, and kept her as his mistress. Stewart had been assaulting his own half-sister. After Stewart's death, Sergeant Farrat sent Myrtle to a school in Melbourne, funded by an unnamed benefactor implied to be Evan. Molly, never told where her daughter went, descended into madness. Evan's wife, Marigold, has spent the intervening years in obsessive anxiety, while Evan drugs her nightly and assaults her while she is unconscious.

Tilly's dressmaking talent gradually draws the town to her despite its hostility. When she designs the wedding gown for Gertrude Pratt, who marries William Beaumont Junior to resolve his family's debts, every woman at the ceremony notices that the dressmaker is never mentioned in the speeches. Tea-chests of fabrics, patterns, and magazines arrive from Tilly's contacts in Paris, Spain, and New York. When Gertrude, now calling herself Trudy, and William's domineering mother Elsbeth found the Dungatar Social Club, the town's women all commission outfits from Tilly, each wanting to outshine the others. Sergeant Farrat becomes her secret collaborator, finishing garments with expert skill. A stylish traveller visiting from the city is astonished by the quality of the women's clothing, commissions pieces from Tilly, and offers her a job, which Tilly declines because most of her clients have not yet paid her.

For the Social Club's ball, Tilly creates spectacular gowns for every woman and designs a version of Dior's famous Lys Noir gown in magenta silk organza for herself. Teddy zips her dress and they share their first kiss. At the hall, however, Tilly discovers her name has been crossed out from every seating chart. Evan spits at her feet. Beula calls her "Bastard, murderer" and shuts the door in her face.

Teddy finds Tilly shaking in the park. She confesses everything: the guilt over Stewart's death and a loss she has never shared. While working in Paris, she had a partner named Ormond and a baby boy, Pablo, who died in his cot at seven months. Ormond blamed her and left. Teddy holds her, they make love, and he proposes, planning to move away with Molly and his brother Barney. Tilly accepts.

In the early hours, they climb the town silo to watch the sunrise. Teddy, determined to disprove Tilly's belief in her own curse, jumps into what he believes is a full grain bin, recreating a childhood stunt. Tilly begs him not to. The bin contains not wheat but sorghum, a fine grain that behaves like quicksand. He sinks and suffocates. Sergeant Farrat writes in his report that Teddy slipped and declares Tilly innocent. At the funeral, the sergeant tells the congregation that if they had accepted Tilly, Teddy would still be alive. His words have no effect. The McSwiney family burns their caravans and leaves Dungatar forever.

In a late moment of clarity, Molly and Tilly share their stories and weep together. Shortly after, Molly suffers a stroke. Mr. Almanac, the town chemist who has Parkinson's disease, refuses to provide pain relief. Tilly and Sergeant Farrat treat Molly through the night with herbal remedies. She dies at dawn. Tilly slices the shire council's wreath into pieces with a shovel at the funeral, attended only by herself, the sergeant, and Reginald Blood, the town butcher.

After Molly's death, Tilly dismantles Dungatar's power structures. She tells Marigold the full story of Evan's exploitation of Molly and explains the numbing properties of French marigold flowers. Marigold confronts Evan, claiming Tilly has rendered him impotent, then slashes his Achilles tendons with a carving knife and drinks an entire bottle of sleeping tonic. Evan is left bleeding; Marigold is eventually committed to an asylum. Beula, who had been spying on Tilly, is struck by a radiogram Tilly hurls from her veranda, ultimately blinding her. Mr. Almanac, shuffling home unassisted, tumbles into the creek and drowns.

The Social Club, desperate after Elsbeth's replacement seamstress proves incompetent and leaves town, approaches Tilly to make costumes for a drama eisteddfod, a competitive performance festival. They choose Macbeth, though none of the committee has read the play. Tilly agrees, demanding payment of all debts, and recognizes that the elaborate Baroque costumes selected will make the cast look absurd. Rehearsals collapse into chaos until Trudy is replaced as director by Mona, William's quiet sister.

While the entire town is at the eisteddfod in neighboring Winyerp, Tilly splashes kerosene throughout her workshop and sets the house on fire. The blaze spreads down The Hill and through the dry grass, razing the entire town. Before leaving, she walks through the empty streets, untying dogs, opening chicken yards, and freeing every tethered animal. She sits on her portable Singer at the railway platform in a brilliant blue pantsuit and white blouse, a galah (a pink-and-grey Australian cockatoo) in a cage beside her suitcase. The train arrives on time, and she boards.

The Macbeth production is a disaster, though the cast wins for Best Costume. On the bus ride home, the townspeople discover Dungatar reduced to smoking rubble. Ruth Dimm, the postmistress, admits she never sent their insurance premiums, having used the money to pay Tilly for the Macbeth costumes. The citizens of Dungatar stand homeless and uninsured in their Baroque finery. The only structure left beyond Tilly's chimney is the Beaumonts' distant homestead at Windswept Crest, and the entire town walks toward it together.