by Madeleine Cleary
Publisher: Affirm Press, 2025
Review
by Erina Reddan
I have been waiting a long time for a novel like this. Melbourne’s laneway’s are full of intrigue and history. The Butterfly Women brings this history to life, focusing on the lives lived around the Brothels of the Little Lon slum area of the 1860s.
It tells the story of Melbourne’s first imagined serial killer, based on Londons’ Jack the Ripper as Melbourne is growing into a gold-fuelled metropolis. What I love about The Butterfly Women is that it’s clearly so forensically researched, with many small details based on snippets from court documents or newspapers from the 1860’s, when the novel is set, and detailed in the author’s note at the end of the book. For instance, Cleary draws on a real life anonymous opinion piece writer, The Vagabond to play a compelling role in The Butterfly Women. The intriguing inspiration for the novel, is Cleary’s own discovery of her ancestors and their role in the brothels of nineteenth century, Melbourne.
I don’t love that the serial killer targets vulnerable women victims, because, for me, that is perpetuating stereotypes we need to be leaving behind. However, this trope is somewhat offset by its feminist intention in that the investigation is carried out by women, making the most of the little power they have. Principally, Harriet Gardiner, a society journalist, who is longing to do real journalism and save lives, and Constable Mary Jenkins, who dresses in her sick police-husbands’ uniform and patrols his beat, on the hunt for a killer that the male police officers seem less interested in pursuing.
There are several other voices in The Butterfly Women, including Johanna Callaghan, a desperately poor Irish woman, trying to use her intelligence to gain power through becoming a ‘dressed girl’, a higher order sex-worker, and the Madame of the luxurious, Papillon brothel, Catherine Laurent, as well as the voices of the dead. So many voices makes for a difficult navigation through the novel landscape and isn’t helped by the unevenness of the writing at times. However, it does paint an intriguing portrait of the underbelly of Melbourne and brings a convincingly authentic early Melbourne to life, with its layers of class and interconnectedness. It is also arresting that the telling of this tale of powerlessness is told through the perspective of the least powerful.
I admire The Butterfly Women’s impressive ambition. The scope and sweep of the novel draws in and sustains the reader.
Publisher’s blurb
It’s 1863, and Melbourne is transitioning from a fledgling colony to a thriving, gold-fuelled metropolis. But behind its shiny new facade, the real Melbourne can be found in the notorious red-light district of Little Lon, full of brothels where rich and poor alike can revel all night. The most glamorous among them is Papillon, home to the most alluring women in the city.
For poor Irishwoman Johanna Callaghan, a job at Papillon could be her ticket to success, but in a time when women’s lives are cheap, it also brings great danger. Meanwhile, for respectable women like journalist Harriett Gardiner, Papillon is strictly off-limits, but when a murderer begins stalking the streets of Little Lon, she becomes determined to visit it and find the truth.
As both women are drawn into the hunt for the killer, a long-hidden side of old Melbourne is revealed. Lush, dark and meticulously researched, The Butterfly Women weaves romance and mystery into an unforgettable tale of Australian history, and the women so often erased from it.