Stepping Out: A Novel: The new novel by French-Australian author Catherine Rey opens in provincial France in the 1970s, with the eighteen year old protagonist, dressed in borrowed platform shoes and a cape, and with her possessions in a plastic bag, abandoning her home and schooling, to move in with her lover Marco. Two passions fuel her rebellion: rage at the cruelties of family life, particularly those inflicted by and on her mother; and a deep commitment to the act of writing, despite the obstacles imposed by convention, provincial prejudice and the indifference of the literary world.

Enticed by the candy coloured striped cover on the “new books” shelf at the library, I picked this book up without knowing anything about it or the author. It is the story of a young woman who leaves her family to live with her older lover, and then of her struggle to assert her increasingly creatively stifled self in a world which dictated a woman’s place in the family home. It is told by the woman – Catherine, it seems this is a largely autobiographical piece, as many of the books the character publishes are also titles that the author has published, then why subtitle the work “a novel”? – in her fifties of her late teenage years. Most of it doesn’t seem to have any sort of retrospective insight into her actions, it is largely told with the arrogant girlish voice of adolescence. Admittedly, this self-awareness does come to light further on in the novel, but it is rather vague. When she writes about the act of writing and the freedom and deception involved in doing so it is interesting, but the rest of her writing does not live up to this supposed passion for the written word. Rey gets tangled up in concepts of feminism and authorship but her points never quite coalesce to make a coherent argument. She utilizes these heavy concepts without engaging in their true weight, almost like she is making mere mention of them for the sake of giving her work the illusion of depth.

If I look around for meaning, I can’t find it in any of the models presented to me: not in sancrosanct maternity, or social success, or family life, or even in a relationship. So just where is happiness hiding? Only writing comforts, compensates, lulls, offers protection and salvation. Happiness flares up in words.

This book is largely forgettable, no matter how many tragic turns her life takes. I can’t help but wonder if perhaps it is just an awkward translation as much of the prose is riddled with use of cliché and simple language. Memoir or novel,  perhaps it doesn’t matter: one woman’s efforts to overcome the tyranny of family and perceived gender prejudice and succeeding, despite numerous setbacks. Through it all she maintains a steadfast belief in her choices, and her absolute right to be able to make those choices.