Belinda Alexandra reveals how she wrote her new book The Mystery Woman

Social conventions are supposed to bind us together in harmony — but sometimes, as Belinda Alexandra discovered while writing The Mystery Woman, they can hide the monsters in our midst.

Belinda Alexandra has a new book out titled The Mysrery Woman. Picture: Elizabeth Allnutt.

It’s Hollywood lore that director James Cameron made even the female extras in his blockbuster Titanic wear petticoats and corsets under their dresses because he wanted the movie to look authentic and for every actor to feel the part. The late Carrie Fisher related the story of how George Lucas forbid her to wear a bra under her Princess Leia costume in Star Wars, “because there is no underwear in space”. It would seem strange that a writer might have to consider her character’s underwear when developing a scene, but that’s exactly what I had to do for Rebecca Wood in The Mystery Woman.

When I construct a story, I imagine every piece of the world I am creating. I need to know not only how my characters think and feel, but also how they express themselves through the clothes they wear and the houses they inhabit. The 1950s is viewed as one of the most glamorous eras in terms of fashion. Women dolled themselves up in dresses and heels to go to the movies, to church, to the supermarket. There is no doubt that the structured nature of the clothes of the era was flattering to the female figure. But what we often forget is how much underwear – not to mention starch – it took to give those clothes structure.

The Mystery Woman by Belinda Alexandra.

In one scene that required Rebecca to be highly physical, I had to consider how difficult it would be for her to run not only in a dress and court shoes, but also how much she would have been hampered by her underwear. Apart from her bra (which offered the lift of a rocket ship) and her high-waisted panties, the 1950s woman needed a girdle to not only to smooth bumps and rolls but also to hold her stockings up. It was difficult to walk in a girdle, let alone run or climb. Certain dresses required petticoats as well. As my fashionista godmother once told me about her memories of 1950s underwear, “The best part of the day was getting all that stuff off.”

But there was something even more constricting for the 1950s woman than her underwear; the social conventions of the time.

Rebecca Wood is fleeing a scandal in Sydney when she takes the role of postmistress in the remote NSW South Coast town of Shipwreck Bay. An attractive woman in her thirties, she is immediately under suspicion from the town gossips because of her single status. She feels compelled to make up a lie about a fiance lost in the war. Later she is invited to join a ladies’ bridge night, seemingly to welcome her to the town but clearly to assess how well she will fit in. Rebecca has to pretend that she is a churchgoer although she hasn’t been for years and she witnesses what happens when one of the participants tries to disagree with the town’s alpha female, Nancy Pike.

Social conventions are rarely written down in a rule book. Yet, we are all aware of them and we are also aware of the punishment that will be dealt out to us if we break them: The disapproving looks; the snubbing; and the shame. We are tribal animals so ostracism can feel like death. We enforce social codes so rigorously that they can affect our own beliefs. In Rebecca’s circle it’s better to be married and unhappy, than it is to be happy and independent. In this way, Rebecca finds herself not only struggling against what society expects of her but with her own indoctrination.

Social conventions are useful when they help a society function better. Rules such as don’t commit murder, don’t steal, offer your seat to an elderly person on public transport all make for a peaceful society. But they can also result in narrow-mindedness and put unhealthy limits on a person’s pursuit of their own happiness. For the residents of Shipwreck Bay, their concern with “doing things the right way” has dire consequences. So obsessed are they by the appearance of respectability that they harbour monsters in their midst and don’t even know it.

A BREAKOUT HIT

The Mystery Woman by Belinda Alexandra is out now. Women breaking free from convention is also a theme in our Book Of The Month, Victoria Purman’s The Women’s Pages. Readers get it for 30 per cent off RRP at Booktopia with the code PAGES. And come have your say at The Sunday Bookclub Facebook group.

Originally published as Belinda Alexandra reveals how she wrote her new book The Mystery Woman