AustLit

'Joe Cinque' s Consolation :A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law (2004) is about a controversial court case in Canberra, in which two young women, Anu Singh and Madhavi Rao, were accused of the murder of Singh's boyfriend, Joe Cinque, by drug overdose. Joe's death starts the war between his mother and his lover. Helen Gamer has depicted in her book the battlefield, where Joe is the sacred, the sacrificial lamb, while Anu Singh is the sinner, who represents a femme fatale, and Marie Cinque, Joe's mother, is a pieta. By illustrating the conflicts and confrontations of the two women inside and outside the court, Gamer has reconstructed the subjectivity of women in a post-feminist era when merits, virtues and communications are most desired.' (Publication abstract)