I was ambivalent about reading this novel. Eager to read it to see how the author tackled psychosis, reluctant because having endure‘I’m fine’, I say.
I was ambivalent about reading this novel. Eager to read it to see how the author tackled psychosis, reluctant because having endured a medically induced episode of psychosis fifteen years ago, I am wary about revisiting my memories. As you can see, eagerness triumphed.
In this work of autofiction based on real-life events, Sanya, the protagonist, takes us on part of her journey during her third episode of psychosis. Her physical journey takes her from home to a community house, to a hospital and home again. Her psychological journey has her questioning her diagnosis and the medical model used to arrive at it. And Sanya’s questioning of what she observes and how she interprets it from her own idiosyncratic reality mirrors aspects of my own experience. Yes, a psychotic world is real to those inhabiting it and is one reason why medical intervention is often required.
One of the strengths of this novel is that Sanya’s reality is presented without any third-party interpretative filter. The reader may be aware that Sanya’s reality is incomplete in that it largely excludes the impact on those around her, but the reader has no other perspective for comparison.
Not all psychoses are the same. My own experience involved auditory and visual hallucinations along with a sense of impending urgency to solve what I perceived to be important issues. I could relate to Sanya’s focus on and interpretation of gestures and signs. I see it as a form of hyperreality.
I finished this novel in awe of Ms Rushdi’s approach to writing about psychosis. Conversations are the primary narrative mode, treatments are questioned, other people (including family members) appear at the fringes. This was Sanya’s reality.
How do we define sanity? Who interprets another’s reality?
This novel is on the shortlists for both the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize. I wish Ms Rushdi every success.
‘You need a friend all the time, not just when you have a story to tell.’
Fay, who may well be a stereotype with whom some will identify, is a bored pu‘You need a friend all the time, not just when you have a story to tell.’
Fay, who may well be a stereotype with whom some will identify, is a bored public servant in Canberra. Fay is also a dreamer. Dreams can be a wonderful way to escape from those stereotypical (and other) aspects of real life that are dull and boring. Fay escapes into her dream world whenever she can: it’s a comfortable place, and her imagined friends seem friendly and welcoming. Much nicer than the real world.
In Fay’s dream world, partly described and defined by folk songs, things start to go mysteriously wrong. But does the dreamer control the dreaming? And can real life and dream life be kept separate? Surely death is too harsh a punishment, even for imaginary Morris dancers? But are they imaginary? Fay’s worlds (both real and imagined) seem to out of control, and Fay herself is becoming ill. What’s really happening here? Can Fay take control over and responsibility for her own life?
‘She saw her current problem as an inner problem.’
While I enjoyed the way Ms Polack constructed Fay’s dream world (all those traditional songs) for much of the book, Fay herself annoys me greatly. Fay is too passive, too self-focussed, and it takes her too long to take responsibility for the consequences of her actions (and inactions). There are other characters, especially Belle, whom I find more appealing.
Leaving aside Fay, I enjoyed the layers of this story, the increasing sense that the barriers between real and imaginary worlds were mutable and permeable, rather than fixed and impenetrable. To Fay (just in case you are reading this): just remember that not all dreams can be controlled, and that there is good and bad in all worlds. There is also an art to effective living.
‘Fire is loud. It calls to people. Probably had been doing that since the dawn of time.’
First responders are our heroes: people we admire and trust. B‘Fire is loud. It calls to people. Probably had been doing that since the dawn of time.’
First responders are our heroes: people we admire and trust. But in this novel, Ms Fox introduces the reader to a fire crew who combine fire fighting with theft. The five-member Ladder 51 fire crew on New York’s Engine 99 is led by one of the heroes of September 11. Under cover of fire emergencies, they manufacture incidents in buildings to scope out and prepare for heists. They use their knowledge and specialist equipment to steal from banks, jewellery stores and art galleries.
But now, as they prepare for one last heist, the Ladder 51 crew has a problem. Their newest member, Andrea ‘Andy’ Nearland is an undercover operative, investigating several crimes including the murder of an off-duty policeman and the disappearance of a mother and her child.
I have mixed feelings about this novel. On one hand, it is full of tension. There is plenty of action involving both various firefighting scenes and the tension between various members of the Ladder 51 crew. On the other hand, most of the characters are despicable. The two main characters are Andy and Ben, one of the fire fighters. The story unfolds from their perspectives and while occasionally I felt sorry for Ben, it was Andy who held my attention. I found Andy’s attention to detail in constructing a background appropriate to her undercover role fascinating.
‘A woman returns to Australia to clear out her father's house, with an eye to transforming the contents into The weight of the past …
Here’s the blurb:
‘A woman returns to Australia to clear out her father's house, with an eye to transforming the contents into an art installation in the tradition of the revered Chinese artist Song Dong. What she hasn't reckoned with is the tangle of jealousies, resentments, and familial complications that she had thought, in leaving the country, she had put behind her - a tangle that ensnares her before she arrives.’
I feel like a voyeur, reading this first-person monologue addressed to the unnamed narrator’s partner Teun in London. The narrator, an artist who fled Australia for London years earlier, thinks (briefly) that she can deal with clearing her father’s house by transforming the contents into an art installation. Realising that this is not possible for her, she arranges for rubbish skips to be delivered. A weight is temporarily lifted, but action as well as intent is required. And this is a difficult job for the narrator: possessions evoke memories, as does the rubbish accrued during the life of her childhood family, which now needs to be cleared. The rubbish is both physical and metaphorical. As I read, I wondered whether the idea of an art installation was an attempt at objectivity, a detached look at items though their connection to her father rather than their relevance to her? Or could it be the adoption of a process the narrator is familiar with as an artist: the need to prepare for an exhibition? Speaking of which, how important is her Wall of ‘Still Lives’?
How reliable is our narrator? How objective are her views? By the time I finished the first part of this novel, I realised her objectivity no longer mattered to me. What mattered was her perception, her description of reality, the fact that she was overwhelmed by the past. I kept trying to distinguish a timeframe for elements of the story, and then laughed at myself for doing so. Why? How many of us organise our thoughts into a strict chronological order, distinguishing cause and effect without any emotional overlay? Hmm.
Part Two of the narrative sees the narrator both clearing (and cleaning) the house as well as catching up with old friends who shared her history of anorexia (despite her partner Teun advising her not to). Will the narrator regret this? I am not sure.
Is it possible to escape the past? Should we even try?
Yes, this novel has me thinking. I am leaving the narrator behind to explore my own reality.
‘She knew what so many of them thought. That she was too late in her pregnancy to be effective. That she was a liability rather than an asset.’
In nort‘She knew what so many of them thought. That she was too late in her pregnancy to be effective. That she was a liability rather than an asset.’
In northern New South Wales and awaiting the birth of her second child, Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is one week away from starting maternity leave. She may be exhausted and counting down the days, but she is determined to continue. Thankfully, she has the support of her husband Geoff. DS Miles is called to the scene of a robbery at a local fast-food restaurant. A teenage girl has been injured when three intruders, wearing masks, robbed the restaurant. Similar masks were worn by two intruders in the recent robbery of a bakery. The injured girl’s father is a local councillor, happy to throw his weight around as investigations proceed.
A second case is given to DS Miles: the review of a closed case in which a man drowned during floods in the previous summer. The man’s mother is convinced her daughter-in-law was somehow involved and the death was not accidental. DS Miles is under pressure to sign off on the closed case, but she wants to investigate thoroughly.
Both cases involve twists, and crucial information has been withheld. In this small community there are few secrets and (of course) everyone has an opinion. There are some personal issues to be negotiated as well, and DS Miles is running out of time.
This was Ms McKenzie’s debut novel, and I liked it. I have lined up the next two novels in the series because I am interested in seeing what is next for DS Kate Miles. She is an intriguing character, and I enjoyed learning more about her.
‘Bee Miles always maintained that she didn’t want to be known, even though she lived most of her life under a public spotlight.’
It seems that Beatrice‘Bee Miles always maintained that she didn’t want to be known, even though she lived most of her life under a public spotlight.’
It seems that Beatrice (Bee) Miles (17 September 1902 – 3 December 1973) was quite a character. I had heard of her as part of a Sydney landscape that had largely disappeared before my first visit in 1970. And, while I had fleetingly wondered about who Bee was and why she lived on the streets, it wasn’t until I picked up this book that I learned more about her.
Ms Ellis has exhaustively researched Bee Miles’s life. Yes, Ms Ellis has included media coverage of Bee and her exploits, but she has looked much further, including notes by treating psychiatrists, discussion with family members, police and court reports, and Bee’s own manuscripts (held in the NSW State Library).
As I read, I wondered how much of Bee’s life was shaped by her father William and the encephalitis lethargica she contracted in 1920 when aged seventeen. Clearly Bee was a nonconformist in many ways, but aspects of her encounters with authority seem (today, at least) to be laughable. Bee defied conventional expectations of female behaviour, which added to her tussles with the law.
It is hard not to admire someone who can quote any passage from Shakespeare, while at the same time flinching at other aspects of her behaviour. Bee became notorious for refusing to pay public transport and taxi fares when travelling about Sydney. Her refusal to pay sometimes led to altercations and arrest.
Bee was an intelligent and restless woman. While she spent much of her time in inner Sydney she also travelled to other Australian towns and cities. Bee spent time in psychiatric institutions, and in gaols. Bee lived at the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged for the last nine years of her life.
Yes, Bee Miles was a character. Ms Ellis mentions the B Miles Women’s Foundation ( https://www.bmiles.org.au/behind-our-...) which was opened in Sydney’s eastern suburbs ‘the first dedicated service for homeless women with mental illness’. As Ms Ellis notes ‘It was a collaboration between the Departments of Housing and Communities and Justice (something Bee might have found ironic).’
I wonder what Bee would think of this interest in her life?
The weather ‘… hadn’t stopped the good people of Jesserton from gathering in the Lutheran church for the funeral of Gunter Brost.’
Set in the fictionalThe weather ‘… hadn’t stopped the good people of Jesserton from gathering in the Lutheran church for the funeral of Gunter Brost.’
Set in the fictional town of Jesserton in the picturesque Adelaide Hills of South Australia, Ms Stringer’s latest novel opens with a funeral. And, at the gathering after the funeral, Margot Pedrick learns that a ’For Sale’ sign has already been erected on Gunter’s property. Margot and her husband Dennis lived next door to Gunter, as does Margot’s older sister Roslyn.
Margot wants to buy Gunter’s property and is outraged when it is sold to a developer who proposes to build an hotel. Margot wants to fight the development and falls out with those who oppose it. Roslyn is in a difficult situation: Gunter’s will asks that the proceeds from the sale be donated by Roslyn to a charity of her choice.
The community is polarised: some see opportunity where others see wanton destruction. Amber, a young pregnant woman, has newly arrived in town. Fleeing violence, she is sleeping in her car. A chance encounter at the doctor’s office sees Roslyn offering Amber a temporary home. Margot, who has already had a run in with Amber, is further outraged and the sisters’ relationship is strained. Anyone who has lived in a small (or smallish) community will be aware of how quickly opinions can polarise over the prospect of new developments. Ms Stringer realistically portrays a community divided as they try to assess the benefit and impacts of what is proposed.
I enjoyed this novel. A couple of twists added elements of tension and Ms Stringer’s characters covered a range of concerns reflecting different life situations. All three of the major characters: Margot, Roslyn, and Amber develop as the story progresses and, yes, I liked the ending.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
‘If asked, Hera would never publicly admit to watching the Oh My God! talk show. It was awful television, even by Mystic TV standards …’
In one of thos‘If asked, Hera would never publicly admit to watching the Oh My God! talk show. It was awful television, even by Mystic TV standards …’
In one of those marvellous fated interventions, a copy of this novel manifested in my mailbox a few weeks ago. Somehow, the sender must have known about my secret addiction to Greek mythology, which started almost sixty years ago when I saw (my first colour movie) ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ at a theatre in regional Tasmania.
Alas, while the world that Hera and Zeus now occupy has little in common with Mount Olympus in the movie they are, so to speak, much closer to home in Sydney’s Marrickville. The world has changed, and just when it seems that Hera is doomed to boredom, resentment and mystical reality television, Medusa’s head is stolen—again.
Hera is sitting at home, watching Oh My God! on television when Stheno and Euryale, sisters of Medusa, knock on her door seeking her help to recover Medusa’s head. Who stole Medusa’s head, and why? Initially reluctant to help, Hera realises that Medusa’s head has the potential to wreak havoc in both the divine and mortal realms.
‘Humans may be fickle in their gods, but their belief in monsters seemed to be surprisingly resilient, so Monsters’ Realm became one of the most beautiful and well-resourced realms in all the dimensions. It helped that if there was ever a belief deficit, they need only send Nessie out for a swim in the loch during tourist season or have Bigfoot appear in a particularly grainy photograph to spike them back up to lucrative levels.’
And so it came to pass that Hera, her stepdaughter Athena and others join the search to find Medusa’s head. In the meantime, Zeus manages to get into a spot of bother of his own, and some of the other divine entities sense an opportunity that they might be able to turn to their own advantage.
What follows is an hilarious (at times) romp through mythology involving many of the Greek pantheon (and occasionally others are mentioned as well). There’s a mystery to solve and no time to waste, not to mention that various deities occasionally run low on existence points. Poor Hera. ‘She was tired, it had been a long day, she was damp and her legs ached, and the premiere episode of Married at First Smite was airing in less than four hours and she hated having to watch it on catch-up. She had no interest in wasting any more time.’
As I read this novel, I was reminded that much of the mythology I read portrays all the heroes as men, and the women are generally either capricious, ornamental or handmaidens. For heavens sake, Atalanta did not even appear in the 1963 movie of ‘Jason and the Argonauts’!
‘A woman’s role is to be wanted by a man’, Poseidon responded. Hera felt herself twitch with irritation. The god was an idiot. Had he never learnt to read the damn room?’ Can there be a happy ending to Ms Marin’s tale of mayhem, mystery and myth? Will Medusa be reunited with her head? And what about … No, I must stop… No spoilers here.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Yes, there are some laugh out loud moments, together with a different, more serious and human depiction of various females from Greek mythology.
Note: My thanks to the gods at Clan Destine Press for sending this wonderful novel my way.
Bundaberg, Queensland. Allan Bretton (known as Tug) the owner of the trawler Sea Mistress, has been accused of murder‘So where do I come in? And why?’
Bundaberg, Queensland. Allan Bretton (known as Tug) the owner of the trawler Sea Mistress, has been accused of murder. The murdered man, Ewan McKay, a deckhand on the trawler Kladium, was found with Tug in the Kladium’s freezer room. Tug wouldn’t say why he was in the Kladium’s freezer room, and it appears to be a straightforward case.
But then the police discovered that the Kladium is owned (through a series of companies) by Stefan Kosanovos, a lynch pin in Melbourne’s drug trade.
Tug’s daughter, Samantha (known as Sam) takes over as the skipper of the Sea Mistress. While Tug is reluctant to let Sam take over, the reality is that without the income generated by trawling, he will lose both his home and the trawler.
Chayse Jarrett, a Brisbane policeman, still dealing with the death of a young woman on his last assignment, is asked to go undercover again, to seek employment as the second deckhand on the Sea Mistress. The police want to know whether Tug is involved in the drug running the Kladium is suspected of being engaged in.
The story that follows is a combination of mystery and romance. Sam and Chayse, attracted to each other, each realise that the other is keeping secrets. The romantic tension builds as does the suspense when the Sea Mistress faces danger on several different fronts.
There are a few mysteries to be solved in this novel, and I enjoyed reading the story as it unfolded. The disappearance of the Madagascar on a voyage from Melbourne to London in 1853 is also woven neatly into the story.
This is the first of Ms Curtis’s novels I have read: I’ll be looking for others.
Jasmine had planned a ten-day literary tour of England with her best friend Bex. When Bex couldn’t make‘Some things just won’t let you run from them.’
Jasmine had planned a ten-day literary tour of England with her best friend Bex. When Bex couldn’t make it, Jasmine decided to take her mother Della with her instead. Jasmine, an Indigenous Australian woman practicing as a lawyer, hopes the trip will bring her and her mother closer together. The past is an uncomfortable space for both Jasmine and Della. Jasmine has had her horizons broadened by education while Della, who has lived in the same small town her entire life, carries the weight of past trauma.
‘People think shared loss will bring you closer together but it can sometimes create gulfs that can’t be crossed.’
Jasmine was three years old when her older sister Brittany disappeared. She has no memory of family life before Brittany disappeared. Jasmine has dealt with the past by trying to move away from it but comes to realise that there are elements worth retaining. Both Della and Jasmine take comfort in some of the wisdom shared by their recently deceased and much-loved Aunty Elaine. The story alternates between Jasmine and Della, and we see both their reactions to the same events in the present. The disappearance of a little girl on Hampstead Heath brings Della’s grief to the fore. Jasmine’s attempts to shield Della from this news fails. While trying to find Della, Jasmine makes a discovery of her own.
This is not a mystery. This is a beautifully written story about two generations of Indigenous Australian women learning both about each other and the power of storytelling. There’s contrast and similarity between the lives and works of the English literary figures and Aunty Elaine’s storytelling.
Some key aspects of this story for me include Della’s emergence into a different world, and her desire to make her own garden when she returns home, and Jasmine’s realisation that her own future need not exclude the past. And, sometimes, it is enough to recognise that others have experienced trauma.
I finished the novel hoping that Della did establish her garden, and that Jasmine found answers in relation to the legal case she has been working on. I finished the novel marvelling at the gentle way in which Ms Behrendt dealt with some important and significant issues.
‘One history builds over another. Our truths are shaped by what is said and what isn’t, formed by the beats chosen to tell a story.
He implored for understanding and forgiveness, and whispered his insistence that I preserve his secret.’
The novel opens with the burial of Lucas VorstHe implored for understanding and forgiveness, and whispered his insistence that I preserve his secret.’
The novel opens with the burial of Lucas Vorsterman in Antwerpen, Spanish Hapsburg Empire, on 22 July 1675. His daughter Antonia, one of two protagonists in this dual plot and dual timeline novel, feels burdened by the secret he shared with her on his deathbed.
In the next chapter, in modern day Antwerp, Belgium, we meet Dr Charlotte Hubert, as she starts her work for the next two terms as the Rubens specialist in the art history department. A phone call from Willem in Acquisitions about a map folio donated to the university:
‘There’s something unusual about it, related to Rubens, which you may find interesting’
signals the beginning of Charlotte’s search for treasures that have been missing for four hundred years. An intriguing search which becomes dangerous.
The story shifts between Charlotte and Antonia, between past and present. This is a complex story, and some aspects worked better than others for me. I’ll confess that I was much more interested in the 17th century than in the contemporary story. While Lucas Vosterman’s secret reverberated through the story and provided an intriguing mystery, the present-day machinations and final resolution did not work as well for me as they might for other readers.
I enjoyed reading about the challenges both Antonia and Charlotte faced, about their relationships with family members and the dilemma each faced as to who they could trust. This is Ms Medved’s first novel, and her background in both art and history makes the historical aspects of this novel really come to life.
‘On 16 December 1885, Edith Emily Dornwell became Australia’s first woman science graduate and the first woman to graduate from the University of Adel‘On 16 December 1885, Edith Emily Dornwell became Australia’s first woman science graduate and the first woman to graduate from the University of Adelaide…’
When I was at primary school, early in the second half of last century, I wanted to be a scientist. My principal role model was Marie Curie. It didn’t occur to me (and was never mentioned by my teachers) that there were female role models within Australia. Alas, my love of science was not equalled by my ability in advanced mathematics. Once I lost the (male) teacher who made mathematics enjoyable and fun, I changed direction.
What, you may be wondering, do my recollections have to do with this book? Well, my main point is that as a child of the 1950s, the role of Australian women was mainly seen as homemakers, or within narrowly defined professional roles such as nursing and teaching. There were very few female doctors or lawyers in regional Tasmania, and I don’t remember learning about any female scientists.
‘In 1959 Dorothy Hill became Australia’s first woman professor – finally breaking this ‘glass ceiling’ for Australian women in science.’
I picked up this book with interest. As the blurb for this book states, histories of Australian science largely overlook women. And yet, between 1900 and the 1940s, women formed a large proportion of the scientific community in Australia (more than in either the UK or the USA). Their work, Ms Carey points out, is less often cited and more likely to be forgotten. Have you read ‘Lessons in Chemistry’, the novel by Bonnie Gamus? It may be fiction, but it makes several relevant, valid points.
Ms Carey’s history makes it clear that women have been involved in scientific endeavours since the first days of colonisation. I kept reading, learning about the positives (for example work undertaken by Elizabeth Blackburn in molecular biology, in botany by Georgiana Molloy and in zoology by Georgina Sweet. On the negative side, women were also involved in the pseudoscience of eugenics (the White Australia Policy has much to answer for).
Almost half of the book is taken up two appendices:
‘Women Studying Science at Australian Universities 1885-2020’ ‘Women Staff of Australian Universities, 1929-1955’;
and a very comprehensive set of notes and an index.
I finished the book knowing more about the role various women had played in scientific endeavours and hoping that more students are made aware of their achievements. Yes, we do have female scientists in Australia, and I hope that we will have more (with equal recognition of their achievements) in future.
‘This is the nature of writing women’s history: chasing fragments of evidence across diverse locations and then stitching them together is a labour-intensive process that is very different to most ‘mainstream’ histories of ‘great men’, where navigating the archival record is far more straightforward.’
Detective Sergeant (DS) Blake Harknell has driven 1,800 kilometres in two days from Melbourne, Victoria‘The small town was as attractive as its name.’
Detective Sergeant (DS) Blake Harknell has driven 1,800 kilometres in two days from Melbourne, Victoria to Hangman’s Gap, a small town three hours north of Brisbane, Queensland to meet with a local senior sergeant. Instead, after he arrives, he is told to report to Detective Inspector Bragg at the site of a controlled burn undertaken by the local Rural Fire Brigade. The body of Senior Sergeant Ivan Mortlock has been found.
DS Harknell, on a brief secondment to Hangman’s Gap, is paired with Senior Constable (SC) Angela Forbes to investigate. What he finds is a small town, an understaffed police station, mistrust, and several superficially helpful locals. In small towns where everyone knows everyone else, everyone has an opinion.
Three months earlier, an as yet unidentified man died in a single vehicle accident. His case is still open. Senior Sergeant Mortlock’s death is suspicious, and then another man is murdered in his own home. Can these deaths be coincidental, or are they related?
Hangman’s Gap is full of tightly held secrets. Not everyone welcomes DS Harknell’s involvement: exactly who is he, and what is he doing in Hangman’s Gap? Suspicion makes some reluctant to share what they know (and keen to learn more).
My curiosity about why DS Harknell travelled to Hangman’s Gap stayed with me for most of the story. And my suspicion (no spoilers here) was largely correct and explained why he was both cautious and thorough in his investigation. I liked the way Ms Amphlett peopled the police station in Hangman’s Gap: the hard-drinking policeman nearing retirement, the inexperienced young policeman, and the efficient SC Forbes with her own history. And what about Senior Sergeant Mortlock? Was there something in his history that explained his death? A few twists kept me turning the pages and guessing about guilt and motivation until very close to the end.
Ms Amphlett brings rural Queensland to life: her descriptions of heat and dust, the impact of fire, the challenges faced by communities in recession all added realism to the story. The main characters are well realised, the secondary characters had me smiling wryly: the busybodies and gossips are universal, and their speculation can often cover (or uncover) motivation.
I finished the novel hoping to meet both DS Harknell and DC Forbes again in the future. This is the first of Ms Amphlett’s novels I have read, and I’ll be looking to read others.
Note: My thanks to Sisters In Crime Australia and Saxon Publishing for providing an ARC for review purposes.
‘He was Australia’s Depression Prime Minister, elected while unemployment levels neared 30 per cent.’
Some weeks ago, I read ‘Plans For Your Good: A Pr‘He was Australia’s Depression Prime Minister, elected while unemployment levels neared 30 per cent.’
Some weeks ago, I read ‘Plans For Your Good: A Prime Minister's Testimony of God's Faithfulness’ by Scott Morrison. As I remarked in my comments on that book, there were two aspects that captured my attention. The first was Mr Morrison’s mention of Prime Minister Joe Lyons. This book by Ms Henderson was mentioned, and I borrowed a copy from my library. I am glad that I did. Ms Henderson’s biography of Joe Lyons is detailed, readable and contains a lot of new (to me) information.
Who was Joe Lyons?
Joseph Aloysius Lyons CH (15 September 1879 – 7 April 1939) was born in Stanley, Tasmania. He was one of eight children born to Ellen and Michael Lyons. In 1891, his maternal aunts paid for his upkeep so he could go to the state school at Stanley. At 16, he became a pupil-teacher, completing his training in 1901. His first teaching posts were at tiny country schools in north-western Tasmania. In 1905, he transferred to Smithton as head teacher. In 1907, when he was 26, Lyons formally qualified at Tasmania’s new teacher training college in Hobart. In 1915, he married Enid Muriel Burnell.
Joseph Lyons began his political career in the Australian Labor Party and was the 26th Premier of Tasmania from 1923 to 1928. In 1929, Lyons resigned from state parliament to enter federal politics. In Labor’s landslide victory on 12 October 1929, he was elected to the federal seat of Wilmot. Prime Minister James Scullin appointed Joseph Lyons to cabinet as the Postmaster-General of Australia and Minister for Works and Railways. In 1930, he was acting treasurer while Scullin was overseas, and came into conflict with the Labor caucus over the government's response to the Great Depression.
In early 1931, Lyons and his followers left Labor to sit as independents. A few months later his group merged with other opposition parties to form the United Australia Party and he was elected Leader of the Opposition. Lyons led the UAP to a landslide victory at the 1931 election.
He was Australia’s 10th Prime Minister serving from 6 January 1932 until his death on 7 April 1939.
I have visited both the Lyons cottage in Stanley and Home Hill in Devonport. I have also read Dame Enid’s memoirs, but I knew little about Joseph Lyons’s life before politics or much about his period as Premier of Tasmania. As an expatriate Tasmanian, I knew that some members of my family considered Joseph Lyons a traitor when he left the Labor Party. As a child, I never questioned this. Ms Henderson provides a detailed account of Joseph Lyons’s early life, of his political activism, the challenges he faced as Tasmanian premier and, importantly, his partnership with his wife.
‘Lyons was undoubtedly one of Tasmania’s great premiers. He governed through economically difficult times, yet raised confidence even if he was unable to overcome the larger and more pressing problems of a state where growth was slow.’
Tasmania is a small state. As I read this book, I kept running into places I knew, people I knew of, and connections between spaces. I read that Joseph Lyons taught at Glen Dhu Primary School in 1908. The school was much bigger when I attended it in the 1960s, but the original classrooms (from 1895) were still in use.
Joseph Lyons was the first prime minister to win three successive elections and was one of only two prime ministers who had been state premiers (George Reid, in 1904, was the other).
Ms Henderson writes:
‘History has not been kind to Joe Lyons. Because he was a Labor man who crossed to the conservatives, Labor historians have undermined his record or ignored it. Because he was an outsider in the conservative team from 1931, Lyons’ time as United Australia Party Prime Minister would eventually be overshadowed by the formation of the Liberal Party in 1944 and the era of long serving Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Neither Liberal Party nor Labor Party would claim Joe Lyons.’
Lisa’s review https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/09/23/h... of this book led me (as her reviews so often do) to read this book. I was curious. I cannot remember when I first encountered the poem ‘My Country’, and I really only know the second verse. Memorising poems is not one of my skills, so I went searching for the entire poem, and here it is:
The love of field and coppice, Of green and shaded lanes. Of ordered woods and gardens Is running in your veins, Strong love of grey-blue distance Brown streams and soft dim skies I know but cannot share it, My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest All tragic to the moon, The sapphire-misted mountains, The hot gold hush of noon. Green tangle of the brushes, Where lithe lianas coil, And orchids deck the tree-tops And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky, When sick at heart, around us, We see the cattle die – But then the grey clouds gather, And we can bless again The drumming of an army, The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country! Land of the Rainbow Gold, For flood and fire and famine, She pays us back threefold – Over the thirsty paddocks, Watch, after many days, The filmy veil of greenness That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country, A wilful, lavish land – All you who have not loved her, You will not understand – Though earth holds many splendours, Wherever I may die, I know to what brown country My homing thoughts will fly.
It is a wonderful anthem to Australia. Dorothea Mackellar was born on 1 July 1885 in Sydney. She was a third generation Australian. Dorothea was the third of four children born to Dr Charles Mackellar and his wife Marion. Dorothea had two older brothers, Keith and Eric, and a younger brother, Malcolm. In writing this biography, Ms Fitzgerald was able to draw on the Mackellar Papers held at the Mitchell Library which included Ms McKellar’s diaries from 1907. Ms Mackellar lived a privileged life: born into wealth she did not have to seek paid work; unmarried and childless she had more time to pursue her own interests. She was, I read, a keen traveller. In addition to spending long periods in Europe, she also travelled to the Caribbean, Egypt and Japan. She was also, clearly, a keen observer. And, while ‘My Country’ may be the only poem many of us are familiar with, it is not her only work. Ms Fitzgerald does a wonderful job of taking the reader into Ms Mackellar’s life, of making us aware of her ties to family and her appreciation of the Australian landscape. Privileged her life may have been but it was not always happy. I finished this book, pleased to have learned something about the life and times of Dorothea Mackellar. Ms Mackellar loved that Australia embraced My Country as an unofficial anthem, making her a household name. But this success, as Ms Fitzgerald writes was a constraint. ‘She could not move on from it no matter how hard she tried.’ Which makes me want to locate and read more of her work.
Yes, humiliating a guy on a girl’s night out was a mistake. Kate Delaney finds herself kidnapped, brutalised‘And that was Kate Delaney’s Big Mistake.’
Yes, humiliating a guy on a girl’s night out was a mistake. Kate Delaney finds herself kidnapped, brutalised and bound in the back of a car. Kate is terrified. She has no idea where she’s headed, no idea what the man’s name is. As a journalist who has reported on crime, Kate is well aware of the statistics about women who go missing. Can she survive?
Meanwhile, Kate’s boyfriend Liam Carroll and friend Sylvia are concerned. Kate was expected home and when she doesn’t return, Liam approaches the police.
‘In Melbourne, Liam Carroll looks at his phone and wonders what the hell is going on. Where is she?’
The story unfolds from several points of view: Kate’s fear, Liam’s anxiety and the procedures followed by the police. Initially Liam is a suspect but is quickly excluded. Kate’s abductor leaves a trail, and the search shifts from Victoria to New South Wales.
This novel held my attention, in part because I am fairly familiar with the area around Pheasants Nest and wondered how it would be worked into the story. I was distracted at times by the number of different perspectives, which (for me, at least) served to reduce the tension. Sometimes, too much detail in fiction can be distracting.
Did I enjoy the novel? Yes, mostly. I needed to keep reading to know how it would end.
Jennifer and Jon Ashby and their son Jasper move to Far North Queensland, trying to start a new life after being involved in a‘So, that’s everything?’
Jennifer and Jon Ashby and their son Jasper move to Far North Queensland, trying to start a new life after being involved in a car crash with fatal consequences. Jennifer escapes gaol but is haunted by the accident. Husband Jon makes much of the sacrifices he is making for Jennifer: leaving a job he loved to give her a fresh start. Jon is caught up, working long hours in his new job and once Jasper starts school, Jennifer has time on her hands. She finds a new job as a freelance photographer. Is this the new start that Jennifer wanted?
Both Jennifer and Jon have secrets. But while Jon can always justify his own actions, he is always questioning Jennifer’s. Life in Far North Queensland is not as idyllic as you might expect. While aspects of this story are obvious and there are a couple of unlikely coincidences, there was a surprise at the end that was a little surprising (and then, with hindsight, blindingly obvious). The past always has a way of catching up. An enjoyable and fast-paced debut novel.
In this retelling of the myth, which I remember as ‘Cupid and Psyche’, Ms Forsyth takes us to ancient Etru‘I was born blue, strangled by my own cord.’
In this retelling of the myth, which I remember as ‘Cupid and Psyche’, Ms Forsyth takes us to ancient Etruria, at the time of the Roman kingdom. Psykhe, the youngest of three sisters, has always been different. The three of them, pawns in their father’s thrust for power, are sent to a tower in Velzna. He intends to arrange marriages for them. Psykhe is befriended by an old woman, Nocturna, who teaches her healing and midwifery. She also meets a young man, Ambrose.
Psykhe falls in love with a young man and is forbidden to see his face. An attempt to do so causes injury. And, as Psykhe angers Venus, the world of the sisters is turned upside down, and the young man is near death.
Part love story, part journey of redemption, we journey with Psykhe as she is set difficult tasks by Venus before being allowed save the young man. One of those tasks requires Psykhe to travel into and return from the underworld.
I picked up this novel, walked into a mythical world I found hard to leave. Ms Forsyth brought her characters to life: the magic and vengeance of the gods, the cruelty and opportunism of man. Recommended.
‘What is remembered lives. What is forgotten dies.’
‘The plan was to leave home at four, reaching the city around five.’
Rachel and Rory Sullivan have had a difficult year. Between her cancer diagnosis a‘The plan was to leave home at four, reaching the city around five.’
Rachel and Rory Sullivan have had a difficult year. Between her cancer diagnosis and treatment and his bankruptcy, things have been tough for the family of four. Their children Emmet and Bridie are negotiating the shoals of teenage-hood, and Rory’s brother Sean complicates life further. The family decide to celebrate survival by attending a Coldplay concert at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium. Yes, the tickets are expensive and increasingly difficult to obtain. Rachel and Rory have platinum tickets and Emmet and Bridie have tickets in the field. Because they won’t all be together, there is a plan to meet after the concert.
Except … only three of them arrive. The fourth has vanished.
Each member of the family has secrets. And as is often the case when someone goes missing, the police initially focus on the remaining family members. The reader knows something of the secrets being kept and the resulting stress. Every member of the family feels guilty. The tension increases. Well, this certainly kept me turning the pages to find out what had happened. I can only imagine the anguish experienced by the remaining members of the family. Yes, social media has a part to play as do adultery, alcohol, blackmail, friendship, guilt, the dark web, and trust.
I liked the way that Ms Carroll wove the various threads together, building a plausible story as it heads towards its conclusion. The different points of view increased possibilities while helping to maintain the tension. This is the first of Ms Carroll’s novels I have read: I’ll be adding others to my reading list.
‘Of course you have never heard of Spellhounds. They are one of The Three Great Secrets of Hallow.’
I may be many, many years older than Ms Tanner’s in‘Of course you have never heard of Spellhounds. They are one of The Three Great Secrets of Hallow.’
I may be many, many years older than Ms Tanner’s intended audience for junior fiction, but I love the way she creates interesting worlds with fascinating creatures, and invites the reader in. ‘Spellhound’ (the first book of a new series), is set in Hallow. Hallow has Three Great Secrets (and yes, you will know what they are by the end of the story). Our three main characters are Flax (a very small minch-wiggin), a ten-year-old Queen, and a large magical pup. Flax is known as Destroyer-of-Dragons, a title she’s not entirely happy with, even though she does have access to some magic. But Minchfold, where she lives, is under threat. The Queen and the pup have their own reasons for wanting to find the dragon and the three of them join forces.
There are lots of adventures, plenty of danger, magic, as well as a talking sword and a few green jellybabies. Short, sharp chapters finishing with a cliffhanger kept me reading. I had to know how this story would end and whether each of our main characters would (or could) confront their demons.
My only regret is that I don’t have a nearby young person to share this story with.
I finished the novel, keen to read the next instalment and not at all surprised that ‘Spellhound’ won the 2023 Aurealis Award for Best Children’s Fiction. The novel is beautifully illustrated by Sally Soweol Han.
Jennifer (JC-S)
>
Books:
australian-womens-writers-challenge
(866)
Loading...
