Dress Down Sunday: The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

published 2014

LOOKING AT WHAT GOES ON UNDER THE CLOTHES

The Orange Juice Problem occurred at the end of an already disrupted week. Another occupant of our apartment complex had destroyed both of my ‘respectable’ shirts by piggybacking on our washing load in the shared laundry facilities. I understood his desire for efficiency, but an item of his clothing had dyed our light-coloured washing a permanent and uneven shade of purple…. Rosie’s outer clothing, which was largely black, had not been affected. The problem was restricted to her underwear.

I argued that I had no objection to the new shade and that no-one else should be seeing her undressed, except perhaps a doctor, whose professionalism should prevent him or her from being concerned with aesthetics…

[Later] Sonia hd suggested purchasing Rosie high-quality decorative underwear for Christmas, noting that gifts of this kind were traditional in the early years of marriage. It was a brilliant idea, and had allowed me to replace the items damaged in the Laundry Incident, but the process of matching the stock at Victoria’s Secret with Rosie’s purple-dyed originals had been awkward. The gift was still in my office.

observations: Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project got a good write-up on the blog last year, and I re-read it recently and was even more enthusiastic: it is clever, well-structured and good-hearted as well as being hilariously funny. It outlined the efforts of Don, an Australian academic, to find a life partner. It’s (intentionally) obvious to the reader from very early on that the eventual partner is going to be Rosie, but the two of them have to find that out for themselves.

In this sequel, just published, the two of them have married and moved to New York, and Rosie gets pregnant. This gives rise to many hugely entertaining misunderstandings and bizarre events very much in the manner of the first book, all narrated in his trademark straight-faced manner by Don. The people around him try to explain to him what he may not be picking up from facial expressions, and just often enough he confounds them with his scientific knowledge, his complete lack of tact, or his sheer humanity. Gene comes to stay, and there are new characters: Sonia, above, is the wife of Dave the Baseball Fan from the previous book, and inexplicably gets involved in Don’s meetings with a social worker, pretending to be his wife:

I gave Sonia a look intended to remind her that she was supposed to be Rosie, who would not be defending weirdness and had not been raised in a small Italian village with poor hygiene. Of course, neither had Sonia. I suspected things were going to become confusing.

I thought The Rosie Effect was a wonderful book: satisfying, charming, kind about the world, very very funny. If you liked the first one, you will like this one too. If you haven’t read the first one you should.

The lady in the underwear is showing Marks and Spencer lingerie – wholesome and real-looking, she looked a lot better than the Victoria’s Secret models in purple.

******ADDED LATER: I am delighted to say that the Rosie author, Graeme Simsion, has tweeted to say that he 'loved the purple underwear and choice of 'real' model.'