Jan 28 2008
Come in Spinner
An Australian book. I remember idly picking this up from the lounge room bookshelf when I was 12, reading most of the first chapter before my Mum descended out of nowhere to snatch it from me. It was years and years before I got to read it. Here’s my review.
We were both pretty steamed up about the problems of women on the home front, says Florence James of her collaboration with Cusack in the writing of the novel Come In Spinner.
So we decided to pool our wartime experience and tell the truth about what the war had done … how it had thrown decent people off balance, and exploitation had become the name of the game.
Novelist and playwright Dymphna Cusack, is known for the films made from her many books, but this classic Australian story, set in the turbulent times of World War 2, holds a special place in Australian culture.
Thoroughly engrossing and compulsively readable, Come In Spinner was an immediate sensation when it was first published in 1951.
The story takes place largely around the Hotel South Pacific where the girls and the occupying American troops meet in the vestibule. Upstairs is the Marie Antionette beauty salon, where the attendants Deb, Guinea and Claire, each with her own complicated romantic entanglement, work long hours to disguise the shortcomings of their rich, fat clientele.
Come In Spinner is sharply observant of the new era ushered in by World War II. From languid, wealthy Palm Beach to the brothels of Kings Cross, Come In Spinner paints a fascinating, lively portrait of the relationships between men and women, and the desperate search for the good times.
The expression Come in Spinner comes from the peculiarly Australian gambling game of two-up or swei. The game is played with the participants in a circle with the equipment required being two coins, traditionally pre-decimal pennies, and a flat piece of wood called the kip about 8 inches in length which has holes carved in it to fit the coins neatly but loosely enough for the coins to come out when tossed.
The game is run by a boxer, who calls the first spinner (one of the players around the circle) to toss the coins, by the expression Come in Spinner. The spinner wagers an amount of their choice on either heads or tails, and other players around the ring can then also bet on either heads or tails.
Come in Spinner is also used as an ironic reference to someone about to be tricked, fooled or beguiled.
Like to shout me a cold beer?
