A Cheery Soul

by Patrick White

A Cheery Soul is a surreal satirical masterpiece set in the fictional Sydney suburb of Sarsaparilla at the end of the 1950s.

Miss Docker is one of Nobel Laureate Patrick’s White’s most memorable creations. She and her neighbours are as hilarious and peculiar as they are uncannily familiar.

Miss Docker the delightfully ghastly, relentlessly upbeat ‘cheery soul’ takes us on a dizzying ride through suburban Australia, as her search for purpose and love leads her in a series of increasingly surreal acts.

From over-pruned tomato plants, a damaged roast a nursing home, a church and the destructive power of good.

Nothing’s as bad as a good neighbour