Indelible Ink

Indelible Ink (2010) is a novel by Australian author Fiona McGregor.

Prone to a drink and estranged from her scheming children she slowly develops a liking for tattoos and a particular tattooist.

Geordie Williamson in The Monthly found the novel to be evocative of its setting: "Beyond the domestic drama of Indelible Ink – its tough, yet tender, appreciation of family dynamics, its revelation of character as an endless war of contradictory impulses fought within a single, human frame – McGregor has set out to exhaustively catalogue Sydney in all its guises.

It is an enterprise anthropological in reach, drawing on everything from history and the built environment to gay subculture and the economics of real estate.

Even the melt and drift at its close feels like a nod to the city’s endless droning summers.