AustLit

'He was the only person who thought there was something grand about the art of dry-cleaning. His wife, Elizabeth, his four noisy sons - so big now - and the noisy children they'd produced; he knew how they felt about the work he did, something between disinterest and embarrassment. His children had 'professions', Elizabeth boasted to her friends. Dry-cleaning, the work that underwrote their home, their lives; he suspected they were slightly ashamed of that. It was something that smacked of service...' (Publication abstract)