One daughter’s quest to understand the mother who walked out

September 4, 2026 — 3:00pmA title with three consecutive adjectives begs the question: is it really Ordinary Funny Tragic?Relationships between parents and their adult children, as well as between siblings, are topics Bridie Jabour explored in her previous novel, The Way Things Should Be, and her latest book once again digs into these fertile subjects.Crimson, 29, is a public servant and a single mum. She lives with her father; her mother left the family home two decades earlier to be with another man and remains partnered to him. Villy was a charismatic social butterfly who didn’t let her marriage or her children get in the way of having a good time, and Crimson is well aware of her mother’s failings, particularly her selfish preoccupations that precluded care and responsibility for her offspring.There are pros and cons to Bridie Jabour’s book about thirty-somethings and their lives.Anna TurnerBut even though she resents Villy’s absence during her formative teenage years, Crimson nonetheless craves her love and approval. Now a harried mother herself, whose interior dialogue is full of to-do lists, Crimson has intimate knowledge that “Every day of parenting is discovering a hundred ways to fail.”Written in the first person, the novel follows the Sydneysider as she navigates various relationships – not just with her wayward, adulterous and lapsed parent, but also with her beloved brother Marty, her long-suffering father, her ex-husband and his perky new girlfriend, and her toddler son. So far, so ordinary.After a brief illness, Villy dies – the tragic element of the title is thus fulfilled. In death as in life, she’d always wanted her own way, with her will demanding that her body be brought back to her childhood home in England. Crimson and Marty have to deal with the logistics of a second funeral, and what follows is very much a variation of the fish-out-of-water trope. The siblings head over to stay with their extended relatives in a mansion in the country with a gravel driveway and a fountain, where they are summoned to meals with the clanging of a bell by the help. Uncle Benny and ghastly Aunt Haha (who, despite her name, fails to provoke a riot of laughter) have, of course, their own eccentricities that bewilder and bemuse the Australians.Bridie Jabour’s second novel. Jabour’s tone throughout is mostly light and breezy, which is fine if the reader is looking for an easy read, but there are several times when her push for levity feels like a misstep. Often, the novel strains for a sitcom effect that teeters on the edge of farce, with random elements such as the heist of a pet duck inserted between all the family-wrangling business for no good reason – perhaps in an attempt to fulfil the “funny” part of the title?In another subplot strand, Crimson develops a crush on an unobtainable man, but the impropriety of their fraternising is never seriously interrogated and is glossed over, seemingly for the sake of giving her a chance at some sort of romantic interest while she’s mourning. Speaking of which, Crimson’s relationship with her mother is never given much of a chance to rekindle after Villy receives a sudden terminal diagnosis. The older woman remains inscrutable; the circumstances surrounding her earlier abandonment of her family are not explored.Perhaps that’s the whole point of the book: just how little we know of our parents’ private lives, their motivations and desires, and the need to accept their foibles and forgive them nonetheless.What else is happening in the book world?Looking for a last-minute Father’s Day gift? Try these booksBrilliant or boring? The verdict on Rachel Cusk’s new novelThis entire novel is one sentence. Somehow, it worksWhy fear of the ‘mad witch’ still pins women down todayOrdinary Funny Tragic by Bridie Jabour is published by HarperCollins ($35).Thuy On is an arts journalist, critic, editor and poet.From our partners