Allen & Unwin, Australia 2026
Cover design Hazel Lam
Cover image iStock
Gabbie Stroud cleverly packs this book with levity and larrikinism, but this a veneer for the very dark matter that is actually the story here.
In the picturesque seaside town of Shellwater Bay, buried shames and present dangers make the lives of women unsafe and unsatisfactory; women are made less by the community and its deeply ingrained patriarchal values.
Three women from different generations meet at the local gym, a macho establishment where the equipment is designed for blokes and the ethos is fit in or ship out.
Steph is a young mother of three young children, grappling with her (well-intentioned but clueless) husband Harry and his incapacity to see her needs past the piles of nappies and mountains of groceries.
His mother Tanya has indulged her sons, and this provides an extra cross for Steph to bear, as she not only cannot compete with the domestic perfection her mother-in-law represents and lauds, but neither can she cut through Harry’s dependence on his mother for parenting support.
Heather is a successful owner of an oyster business and the wife of 26 years of Byron. Suddenly in a very public way, he announces he wants a divorce and tells Heather he ‘has feelings’ for the much younger Zoe who works in the family business. Heather has managed her work and private life with considerable efficiency, keeping fit and trim and availing herself of a great deal of beauty therapy to stay attractive. We soon find that this is not the least of Byron’s missteps.
Joany Maloney is a woman in her 70s who has never been to a gym before, was married at a young age to the highly controlling and, we quickly gather, violent and threatening Tony. Their apparent wealth and comfortable circumstances mask a world of pain.
From a coffee gathering after gym, the women gradually forge a firm friendship and get to know one another and their challenges, not always through explicit conversations but often intuiting the circumstances that have made their lives so difficult.
They embark on a series of escapades, a campaign of rebellion against the patriarchy and the ruling societal norms, first by stealing a set of horrid exercise bikes from the gym – it’s their first gesture of rebellion.
But the rebellious behaviour escalates, each time making a clear statement about the power of women when they speak up, band together and do what is necessary to make women’s lives better and safer.
Their role model is provided by young gym attendee Seely, who calls out bad behaviour by the men in the story, and then conveniently provides a female police partner Detective Godward, who doesn’t see things quite the way the men want to tell the story. Both women are definitely a fist-pumping opportunity for the reader as we see the power structure white-anted by cunning and solidarity.
Themes boldly and unerringly broached include: sexual abuse, domestic violence, the demeaning of women through sexist labelling (The Piece of Meat Girl for example, whose statue over the butcher’s shop is a community favourite!), the unequal distribution of domestic labour and childrearing responsibilities, crimes against women including the crime of being a silent bystander, the inappropriate response by authorities to complaints of sexual harassment and other crimes, gender stereotyping, coercive control, power imbalance in relationships and changing family dynamics in contemporary society.
So you see, not hilarious at all. And yet, Gabbie Stroud is such an accomplished storyteller and writes with such a dab hand that we are also entertained throughout the novel; we laugh often (albeit sometimes wryly) and we rejoice all the more in the triumphs of our sheroes for the suffering we have seen them endure.
The Angry Wives Club is an important work, calling out the many ways shame is imposed in all the wrong places and showing with the sharpest clarity the way forward to a fairer, gentler and happier society for all, which may or may not involve murder!
Thank you to Allen & Unwin for my review copy and to Gabbie for an always warm and thought-provoking conversation about the matter of this book and life.