The photo in the background below is one of my mother when she was young. In this shot she’s about sixteen. Above her in another photograph is my grandmother – the woman who’d become her mother in law – and her husband. Mum was the one who was supposed to write, but in the end it was dad who spent years writing a memoir.
This is a scholastic imprint (Palgrave) and the book was bought for $24.95 (full retail price) sometime in the middle of 2008 when I happened to be for a few days in Melbourne. It’s a book from the bookshop Readings. I went to Melbourne in that year to attend a Jane Austen conference at which Germain Greer spoke.
In those days I travelled between the capital cities in my big sedan. I’d bought the car the previous year and it took me on many intra-city trips including once from Melbourne to Brisbane along the Newell Highway. I also remember getting up from my seat in the crowded auditorium to ask Greer a question about the forgotten poets who were Jane Austen’s influences and whether it was productive to read their work (“Yes, definitely.”). This diminutive but impressive book is of the same ilk: smart and informative. For a full review, see my Patreon (you know you want to).
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