{"id":142103,"date":"2022-07-27T09:45:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T23:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/?p=142103"},"modified":"2025-04-25T12:18:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T02:18:41","slug":"the-diplomat-chris-womersley-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/the-diplomat-chris-womersley-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Diplomat (Chris Womersley) – book review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Up until now, award winning Australian author Chris Womersley\u2019s novels have been stand-alones. And the same could be said about his latest novel The Diplomat. But it is a sequel of sorts \u2013 to his 2013 novel Cairo. Or if not a sequel then at least a companion piece or spiritual successor. And given it has been nine years since that outing, no familiarity with that novel is needed to fully appreciate this follow up.<\/p>\n

It is 1991 and Edward Degraves has come back to Australia from England and recognises that \u201c[a]ll I had to do now was survive the rest of my life\u201d. But that is not a simple task, Degraves is fresh out of detox after a long period of addiction, mourning the death of his wife Gertrude from an overdose, kicked out of the UK and short of cash. He has washed back up in Melbourne with a desperate plan. He has managed to smuggle some heroin back into the country and plans to sell it and live off the proceeds. But nothing is that easy, and before Degraves can get to that he has to confront the consequences of his life choices and the ghosts of his past.<\/p>\n

The Diplomat is essentially a character study. Degraves a former drug addict and art forger, lives both in the present but also the past, remembering his involvement in the theft and forgery of a Picasso (the subject of Cairo) but also his life with Gertrude in England where they made a living by inventing a European artist and then selling his supposed lost works (painted by Gertrude) to Russian oligarchs. Along the way he also has to deal with his father, old acquaintances, Gertrude\u2019s parents and her sister and try and come to terms with a life that has been dominated and then almost completely consumed by drugs.<\/p>\n

But Womersley also brings a particular milieu of early 1990s Melbourne to life. In particular the, streets and pubs and hotels that Degraves drifts in an out of, including the eponymous Diplomat Hotel. While it does not seem that long ago, Womersely presents the world of The Diplomat as being very distinct to the Melbourne of 2022.<\/p>\n

Womersley has never been afraid to deal with the darkness in people, with the rough and the smooth, and this is no exception. And he also explored some sark places, including issues of drug addiction, in his recent short story collection A Lovely and Terrible Thing. The Diplomat is a finely honed, melancholic and compassionate glimpse into a life in earlier times that may have looked exciting from the outside but was always headed for tragedy. It is not an easy journey but there can be few better guides to this world than Chris Womersley.<\/p>\n

Robert Goodman
\nFor more of Robert’s reviews, visit his blog Pile By the Bed<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Up until now, award winning Australian author Chris Womersley\u2019s novels have been stand-alones. And the same could be said about his latest novel The Diplomat. But it is a sequel of sorts \u2013 to his 2013 novel Cairo. Or if not a sequel then at least a companion piece or spiritual successor. And given it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[802],"tags":[117,15,1965,74,3500,112],"class_list":["post-142103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-book-review","tag-books","tag-chris-womersley","tag-crime","tag-fiction-review","tag-thriller"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Diplomat (Chris Womersley) - book review -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chris Womersley's novel The Diplomat is a finely honed, melancholic and compassionate glimpse into a life that may have looked exciting but was always headed for tragedy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/the-diplomat-chris-womersley-book-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Diplomat (Chris Womersley) - 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But the narrative ranges over forty years of their lives and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Colours-Dark.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":150124,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/ordinary-gods-and-monsters-chris-womersley\/","url_meta":{"origin":142103,"position":1},"title":"Ordinary Gods and Monsters (Chris Womersley) – book review","author":"Robert Goodman","date":"October 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Australian author Chris Womersley has an eclectic back catalogue; even his two connected novels \u2013 Cairo and The Diplomat \u2013 are very different creatures. But there are a few through lines, and one of those is crime. While very little of Womersley\u2019s work fits neatly in the usual slots of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ordinary-Gods.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5063,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/bereft-chris-womersley-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":142103,"position":2},"title":"Bereft (Chris Womersley) – book review","author":"David Edwards","date":"April 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Dark and brooding, Bereft by Chris Womersley was my introduction to a writer I met briefly in the Green Room at the Perth Festival Writers Week wrap up. 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In The Heretic McIlvanney brings McCormack back to the mean streets of 1970s Glasgow, six years after the events of The Quaker. So that while this is a sequel and some of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Heretic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":150616,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/the-seven-chris-hammer-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":142103,"position":4},"title":"The Seven (Chris Hammer) – book review","author":"Robert Goodman","date":"October 18, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Detectives Ivan Lucic and Nell Buchanan return for a third time as the leads in Chris Hammer\u2019s sixth book The Seven. Once again he delivers a multi-generational tale of crimes and misdemeanours in a very particular part of the Australian rural landscape. While Treasure and Dirt was set in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Seven.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":139773,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/canticle-creek-adrian-hyland-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":142103,"position":5},"title":"Canticle Creek (Adrian Hyland) – book review","author":"Robert Goodman","date":"January 5, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in 2007, Adrian Hyland won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut crime novel for his Northern Territory set novel Diamond Dove (since renamed Moonlight Downs) followed a couple of years later by its sequel Gunshot Road. Hyland achieved further recognition for his non-fiction account of the 2009 Victorian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Canticle-Creek.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}