'A very funny confessional novel set in one of the only Australian independent record stores still functioning, if barely. This is High Fidelity with a female gaze.
'Kathy has worked at beloved Brisbane indie record store Dusty's Records for half her life. She arrived as a teenager high on her dad’s supply of Led Zeppelin, stayed through her twenties and suddenly thirty is on the horizon and she’s still there, measuring her self-worth by her knowledge of the Velvet Underground’s back catalogue.
'Lately, though, cracks have been appearing in Kathy’s comfortable indie bubble. Her friends – feisty Mel, the only other woman employed at Dusty's, and straight-laced Alex, whom Kathy has known since preschool – are growing up and moving on, while she’s stuck in a cycle of record store, pub, repeat, with the rest of the Dusty's music bros. But how do you move forward when you’re stuck in a groove? And what happens when you realise that you’ve been working so hard to be part of the boys’ club that you never stopped to wonder if you should be creating a club of your own?
'Her Fidelity is a feminist coming-of-age story for anyone who has ever felt that a song understood them more than their own family, for anyone who has ever felt like the culture they love might not love them back, and for anyone who has ever turned to Stevie Nicks for advice while ignoring the sensible people around them.' (Publication summary)
Author's note:
To Clancy
'‘I have worked at Dusty’s since I was fifteen,’ says Kathy, the pally narrator of Katharine Pollock’s novel Her Fidelity. She’s 29 now, going nowhere slowly. Kathy’s workplace is a down-at-heel Brisbane record store and her workmates are dissatisfied, heavy-drinking men: frowning Jason, pretty Ian, pervy Warren, Silent Andy, and the store’s jaded owner and namesake, Dusty. Then there’s Mel, the other woman on staff, who commands the store’s office, sorting rosters and dispensing wisdom and snacks. Seventeen years older than Kathy, Mel is gay and unfazed by her male colleagues: the implication of her sexuality within the novel is that, among men, she has nothing to prove. Kathy, by contrast, is two parts exasperation to one part propitiation in the face of her male frenemies, as she calls them. Mel is cool. Kathy is uncool and she knows it.' (Introduction)
'‘I have worked at Dusty’s since I was fifteen,’ says Kathy, the pally narrator of Katharine Pollock’s novel Her Fidelity. She’s 29 now, going nowhere slowly. Kathy’s workplace is a down-at-heel Brisbane record store and her workmates are dissatisfied, heavy-drinking men: frowning Jason, pretty Ian, pervy Warren, Silent Andy, and the store’s jaded owner and namesake, Dusty. Then there’s Mel, the other woman on staff, who commands the store’s office, sorting rosters and dispensing wisdom and snacks. Seventeen years older than Kathy, Mel is gay and unfazed by her male colleagues: the implication of her sexuality within the novel is that, among men, she has nothing to prove. Kathy, by contrast, is two parts exasperation to one part propitiation in the face of her male frenemies, as she calls them. Mel is cool. Kathy is uncool and she knows it.' (Introduction)
