A New Title from the Writer of The Convent
Australian Writer
Maureen McCarthy
Stay with Me
Allen & Unwin
2015 $28.99pb
352pp
ISBN 978 1 7433 1688 7
Themes: Domestic violence/ Flashbacks/ Kew
Mental Hospital/ Rural Australia
When we first meet
Tess she has survived (but only just) some years of being in a violent
relationship with her partner, Jay with whom she has had a child, now a much
loved three-year-old named Nellie. Tess and Nellie are stuck on an isolated, lonely farm above
Byron Bay, mainland Australia’s most easterly point, with no means of
communication with anyone who might help. The story begins when
Tess has made the decision to run away and continues in a clutch of flashbacks
to her younger days when she was brought up by her siblings and even further
back to a time when women who were reacting to extreme mental and physical
abuse were said to be ‘mad’ and put in mental hospitals (then called asylums)
often to die of hopelessness and despair. There is a genuine air of anxiety and tension
hanging over the book and the reader cannot help but become involved in Tess’s
life but the ending, on a commercial flight, high above the Pacific, could not
be more positive or empowering. A
long but totally worthwhile read in a satisfyingly ‘chunky’ book.
Readers who get involved in this
story and to whom the writer is new will be pleased to know there are many other
titles – just Google Maureen McCarthy
writer for details.
For mature readers
(and adults)
(I am sorry I have neglected this Blog for the past week. It's not that I haven't been reading- it may just be that I am a very poor time manager. I wonder if I should go to a time management course?
So much is happening or about to happen in the children's book world at present - the run up to the Children's Book Awards/ the LIANZA Children's Book Awards on June 15th at National Library/ Tinderbox looming on the horizon....... BM)
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