She also has a degree in Mass Communication, majoring in writing and media from the University of Technology in Sydney and has just completed her PhD in English at Macquarie University. Justine has had a very varied employment history from waitressing to tutoring at university. She is also an excellent pool player and maker of fine marguerites. Justine Ettler's book, Marilyn's Almost Terminal New York Adventure, follows her much discussed first novel, The River Ophelia. Tumbling, rushing and spilling off the page, it almost disappears up its own syntax.
Sentences can be half a page long.
The effect is like being inside a video clip program. You are blasted for a few minutes with a flurry of images and a tangle of words that string characters and dialogue together. Then it stops. And starts again. So she sets out on a picaresque journey to New York to find this world-weary man, through the planes and taxis and a disastrous stint at waitressing.