“Borderline, feels like I’m going to lose my mind.” (Madonna)

/ madamebibilophile

Somehow I’ve accumulated several Janette Turner Hospital books in the TBR, without ever managing to get round to reading any of them. So thank goodness for AusReading Month 2023 hosted by Brona at This Reading Life which finally got me to pick one up!

Borderline is JTH’s third novel, published in 1985. The blurb on the back describes it as a metaphysical thriller, but I don’t think that’s a helpful description. There are thriller elements but what JTH is more concerned with is the unreliable narratives we tell ourselves and others; how we can love those who remain so unknown to us; and the unpredictability of all our lives that can change in an instant. These themes don’t lend themselves to definite resolutions, so those seeking a thriller will be disappointed.

However, if you’re happy to go along with an exploration of these ideas that ends without any neat answers, there’s a lot to enjoy in Borderline.

The narrator is Jean-Marc, a man who has always had a slightly Oedipal relationship with his father’s girlfriend, Felicity. Seymour aka Old Volcano, was an artist much older than Felicity, who was nearer in age to her stepson.

“When I was five, my father was already famous and my mother was mostly distraught. Later she escaped. She made a quantum leap into banality. Which is the true secret of happiness – a second marriage, a very ordinary life, other children. Naturally she does not care to see me, a revenant from that earlier bad time, and I do not blame her at all.”

Felicity and Seymour’s relationship inevitably ends, and Felicity becomes a successful art dealer. She is returning from a trip when, at a border crossing between the United States and Canada, she makes the impulsive decision to smuggle Dolores Marquez, a refugee from El Salvador, with the help of a man called Gus.

Gus’ full name is Augustine, he’s a salesman who is routinely unfaithful to his wife. Felicity calls Dolores La Magdalena after a painting. People in this novel have different names, different roles, splintered lives. They disappear and no-one knows where to begin looking for them.

Gus’ daughter Kathleen turns up at Jean-Marc’s house, and their relationship seems to almost transgress boundaries, but not quite. As they try and locate their loved ones, Jean-Marc acknowledges that he is filling in a lot of gaps with very little to go on:

“Her stories bombard me, they seem to have become my own memories, they writhe and change and regroup in the way true memories do. They are like photographs in her grandfather’s dresser, a deluge of the ever-present past.”

The plot of Borderline is enough to pull the reader along, but this is not the novel to read if you want a plot-driven story. Jean-Marc tracks Felicity as best he can, but she remains out of reach. The stories in Borderline are unclear in origin: what Jean-Marc has experienced, what he has been told, what he is making up.

“Her days are baroque, they curl into each other like acanthus leaves, she lives somewhere between now and then. She moves in and out of her life.”

“Still, I have to admit, there has always been a quality of absence about her; which is why her disappearance itself seems insubstantial, merely a figure of speech, or a trick of the light, a momentary thing.”

I would completely understand if someone experienced this novel as a frustrating and disappointing read. However, I felt Borderline was an effective exploration of how human beings try and make sense of themselves, each other and the world when so much remains unknown and chaotic. It has some truly breathtaking passages and JTH is absolutely a writer I’d like to explore further.

To end, let it never be said that I shy away from the obvious in my 80s song choices 😀

20 thoughts on ““Borderline, feels like I’m going to lose my mind.” (Madonna)”

  5. Pingback: AusReading Month Masterpost 2023

  6. Thank you for reading yet another Australian novel for AusReading Month! This is not a JTH that I know, so thank you for bringing it to my attention.
    An “exploration of how human beings try and make sense of themselves, each other and the world when so much remains unknown and chaotic” is one of my favourite genres 🙂

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  9. Hahaha Never let it be said, indeed!
    She’s one whom I’ve done brilliantly with collecting, dismally with reading. I really must.
    I wonder if it was more metaphysically thrilling when it was published, whether our expectations of thrillers are rather different now (I believe I have the same copy, I’ll have a look, maybe I’ll earmark her for next year).

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    • Good to hear I’m not the only one who seems to accumulate JTH without reading her! I’ll try and get to some of her others now too.

      Yes, that’s a really good point. It’s nearly 40 years so expectations will have changed.

      I hope you enjoy this if you get to it Marcie 🙂

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