My Hundred Lovers

Praise for
The Broken Book

‘Both very Australian and resoundingly international,
The Broken Book
confirms Johnson's status as one of the finest Australian writers . . . fiercely beautiful.'
The Australian

‘A bold narrative, in which we're constantly reminded by the quality of her prose that this is an imaginative work . . . It's a kaleidoscope of memory, jagged and disordered as the artist's tragic life.'
Canberra Times

‘An astonishing novel . . . a jewel of a book.'
Vogue Australia

‘
The Broken Book
is wonderfully rich, complex and compelling. Susan Johnson has created an audacious and original novel with an awe-inspiring ability to explore emotional truths.'
Daily Advertiser

Praise for
Life in Seven Mistakes

‘Feeling, insight, rambunctious wit.'
New York Times Book Review

‘She has a knack for presenting what can be unbearable in reality, of rendering it on the page with tremendous heart.'
Sydney Morning
Herald

Susan Johnson was shortlisted for the 1991 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for her novel
Flying Lessons
, shortlisted for the 1994 National Book Council's Banjo Award for the novel
A Big
Life
and shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2000 for her memoir
A Better Woman
. Her other books include
Hungry Ghosts
,
Messages from Chaos
,
Women Love Sex
(editor and contributor) and
Life
in Seven Mistakes
.
The Broken Book
was shortlisted for the 2005 Nita B Kibble Award; the Best Fiction Book section of the Queensland Premier's Literary Award; the Westfield/Waverley Library Literary Award; and the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal Award for an Outstanding Australian Literary Work.

In 2010 she returned from ten years in London to live in Brisbane. She is a feature writer at
Qweekend
magazine, and lives with her teenage sons in Kangaroo Point.

ALSO BY SUSAN JOHNSON

FICTION

Latitudes: New Writing from the North
(co-editor, 1986)

Messages from Chaos
(1987)

Flying Lessons
(1990)

A Big Life
(1993)

Women Love Sex
(editor, 1996)

Hungry Ghosts
(1996)

The Broken Book
(2004)

Life in Seven Mistakes
(2008)

NON-FICTION

A Better Woman
(1999)

On Beauty
(2009)

First published in 2012

Copyright © Susan Johnson 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web:
www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74175 635 7

Design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko
Typeset in 12.5/17 Mrs Eaves OT CE by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper in this book is FSC® certified.
FSC® promotes environmentally
responsible, socially beneficial and
economically viable management
of the world's forests.

For Simone Bocognano, with love and admiration

My lovers suffocate me,

Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin,

Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me at night,

Crying by day, Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and

chirping over my head,

Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush,

Lighting on every moment of my life . . .

WALT WHITMAN,

‘Song of Myself'

If the body is not a
thing
, it is a situation . . .

it is the instrument of our grasp upon the world.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR,

The Second Sex

Contents

One, Two
Gods

Three
Incarnation

Four
Sunshine

Five
My fingers

Six
Grass

Seven
The seventh lover

Eight
The first girl I loved

Nine
Object-sexualist

Ten, Eleven, Twelve
Cheese—Chocolate—Croissants

Thirteen
The smell of love

Fourteen
Mother's red fingernails

Fifteen
Giggling

Sixteen
The dog who loved me

Seventeen
Flight

Eighteen
The perfect lover

Nineteen
Cigarettes

Twenty
Her father

Twenty-One
I slept with the man who slept with the girl who slept with the man who slept with the girl who slept with Bob Dylan

Twenty-Two
A lover's kiss

Twenty-Three
The beery-mouthed lover

Twenty-Four
A horse

Twenty-Five
The first lover who entered my body

Twenty-Six
The knee-trembler

Twenty-Seven
Nana Elsie

Twenty-Eight
The music lover

Twenty-Nine
A cat

Thirty
Jonathan Jamieson

Thirty-One
The flowered bud, wrestled

Thirty-Two
The shadow lover

Thirty-Three
Claudette

Thirty-Four
Feet

Thirty-Five
Kiss me, Steph

Thirty-Six
Justine Gervais

Thirty-Seven
A bridge

Thirty-Eight
Even dead husbands must be counted

Thirty-Nine
France

Forty
Words

Forty-One
Words in her fingers

Forty-Two
Heavenly sleep

Forty-Three
Coffee

Forty-Four, Forty-Five, Forty-Six
Three men in one day

Forty-Seven
Skin

Forty-Eight
The lover who fell in love with desire

Forty-Nine
A dress

Fifty
The lover oblivion

Fifty-One
The hairdresser

Fifty-Two
The blind lover

Fifty-Three
The boss lover

Fifty-Four
History

Fifty-Five
The dissolute lover

Fifty-Six
The impotent lover

Fifty-Seven
Nana Elsie, encore—épater le bourgeois!

Fifty-Eight
My son

Fifty-Nine
The romantic lover

Sixty
The bottom lover

Sixty-One
The deflowerer, again

Sixty-Two
Super Nan

Sixty-Three
The wine lover

Sixty-Four
Paris

Sixty-Five
The beach lover

Sixty-Six
The beautiful lover

Sixty-Seven
Breasts

Sixty-Eight
The house she fell in love with

Sixty-Nine
The love of hands

Seventy
The worried lover

Seventy-One
Roses

Seventy-Two
The bird lover

Seventy-Three
Marché aux puces

Seventy-Four
Song of Songs

Seventy-Five
Celestine

Seventy-Six
The legs pumping

Seventy-Seven
A pencil

Seventy-Eight
Brasserie Balzar

Seventy-Nine
The bath lover

Eighty That
delicious equation

Eighty-One
Coup de foudre —The princely lover

Eighty-Two
Prince

Eighty-Three
The tree lover

Eighty-Four
Toes

Eighty-Five
A black pearl

Eighty-Six
David, David, David

Eighty-Seven
The unrequited lover

Eighty-Eight
Horatia

Eighty-Nine
Gelato

Ninety
Breath

Ninety-One
Australia

Ninety-Two
Duck

Ninety-Three
The first lover I slept with after I lost my husband

Ninety-Four
Hotel sheets

Ninety-Five
Another house as object lover