Indelible Ink

Winner of the 2011 Age Book of the Year Award.

'For a long time now, when people ask me a favourite Australian author, invariably I think and say Fiona McGregor. There is a gutsiness, a splendour and command of language and expression in her writing that thrills me every time I read her. Indelible Ink is a stunning book, a novel that addresses our world and our time with an acute and ferocious acumen. There is also tenderness here and there is wisdom. Marie King, the grandmother who begins to understand living and courage with her first tattoo, is destined, I think, to become of the great characters of Australian literature. This is a superb book by — undeniably now — one of our finest writers. Thanks for publishing this book. It's f**king gold.' Christos Tsiolkas

Marie King is a 59-year-old divorcée from Sydney’s affluent north shore. Having devoted her rather conventional life to looking after her husband and three children — who have now all departed the family home — she is experiencing something of an identity crisis, especially as she must now sell the family home and thus lose her beloved garden. On a folly she gets a tattoo.

Marie forges a friendship with her tattoo artist, Rhys, who introduces her to an alternative side of Sydney. Through their burgeoning connection, Marie’s two worlds collide causing great friction within Marie’s family and with her circle of rich friends.

With echoes of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Indelible Ink is a multi-layered examination of how we live now, in which one family becomes a microcosm for the changes operating in society at large.

Read Fiona McGregor's guest blog for Readings about the story of her book Indelible Ink and how the novel came to be.

Read Christos Tsiolkas's interview with Fiona McGregor about Indelible Ink.