I’m delighted to announce that my memoir of childhood, This Place You Know, is published this month by Ginninderra Press. It’s been a long journey, starting back in 1996 when my eldest daughter, Nicola-Jane, said ‘Mum, you’re my mentor in writing but you haven’t written anything!’ So I started scribbling my memories of childhood in an exercise book. Then, in 1999, after a brief course of psychotherapy, I realised I didn’t want a career, I wanted to tell my story. So I went back to university, and completed a Master of Creative Arts degree. Part of it was an autobiographical novel. A couple of years later, I returned and did a PhD in Life Writing. Over the years, I split the childhood story apart from the memoir of my first marriage and the loss of my children, and have continued to work on it, on and off. Along the way, I had a couple of near misses… shortlisted for the Finch memoir prize, then a nibble from Black Inc. After that went nowhere, I decided to get it edited by a literary editor, Alexandra Nahlous. She helped me to restructure it; the major change was that I put my mother’s voice in the first person, and took a week away at a seaside fishing village to write the story of her early years in the Hay district and her marriage to my father.
So my voice takes over when I’m about five. Finally, 23 years later, it’s published!
Here’s an excerpt from a chapter called Summer 1946, the last chapter in my mother’s voice. Standing at the kitchen sink, she stares out at the bright white sunlight glancing off the dark shiny leaves of the mandarine and lemon trees, and hears the baby galahs crying for food in the tall sugar gums at the top of the garden. Years of drought, dust storms, flock losses, the Great Depression, more drought, poverty, and her husband’s increasing loss of interest and belief in the place and the family, have eroded her dream of their life on the land.
Can I leave? Should I? So many times, I’ve imagined it — packing up a few things for myself and Anna when Henry is out in the paddocks. Then, when he goes off to the neighbours, walking the mile and a half up to the main road and waiting till someone comes along, flagging them down and begging a lift into town. Going to the hostel where Simon and Malcolm are boarding, getting them to pack their things, and catching the noisy smelly little motor train from Hay to Narranderra. A night at the Railway Hotel, lying awake, thinking of all we’ve left, listening to the rumble of the freight trains passing, the water glass rattling against the jug on the bedside table.
But it’s all too hard, and she still hopes for change.
Writing my mother’s story that enfolds my own has been a profound experience for me, and brought me to a full realisation of her courage, her strength, and her loyalty and love for her children, which sustained her through the losses and the betrayals that broke her life in half. My life was broken too, but my mother’s strength was the anchor.
If you’d like to read This Place You Know, you can buy it from Ginninderra Press at $32.95, + $10 postage . Or you can buy a discounted signed copy from me. Reviews are welcome. Just click on the button below and it will take you to Paypal, where you enter your email address and password to log in and buy the book; or if you don’t have a Paypal account, it’s very easy (and free) to create one. Note that postage is for Australia only. Overseas buyers should go to Ginninderra Press website.