Journey from Venice by Ruth Cracknell

Ruth Cracknell, beloved Australian icon of stage and screen, had already written her official memoir- A Biased Memoir- before taking the eponymous journey to Venice, which she doe s with her husband, Eric Phillips, between engagements with the Sydney Theatre Company. On day two or three of the journey, he is admitted to hospital with an uncontrollably bloody nose, which then becomes a stroke, a cancer diagnosis, and a tortuous navigation to have him medically evacuated to Australia, where he dies a few weeks after arrival. The story is obviously hideous for her, and the B plot is how this city of Venice, at first so enticing and romantic with its complicated architecture and social hierarchy becomes a villain in the story. 

Despite being a memoir, she manages to make it not about her by referring to herself only ever as "Mrs Philipps". Hah. Only in a woman's memoir. On the flip side, there's a scene when two Australians, holidaying in Venice, recognise Ruth from tv and approach her to say hello. She blurts out to them the horrible story about her husband's illness, and how she's navigating this all alone and doesn't speak Italian. I bet those Aussies still tell that story.

This book foreshadows The Year of Magical Thinking in exploring the loss of a life's companion, and dealing with strangers- especially medical personnel- who just can't and don't understand it all. She, like, Joan Didion, gives voice to universal love and grief. It's lovely to have someone with such skills write it all down.

From Strength to Strength by Sara Henderson

Sara Henderson is a Gina Rhinehart-esque character from the 1980s, with a pretty truly amazing story that is still hugely problematic. She's from a well-to-do family from Sydney, and in the 1950s meets and marries an American army officer and investment banker, quite a bit older than her. He takes her off to Hong Kong and they have ever so many hilarious, racist japes while they sail around Hong Kong Harbour and he's obviously rooting every woman around them. Then one day, he says they're moving back to Australia because he's bought a million-acre beef cattle station in the Northern Territory from which they will make their millions. There's no road, there's no farmhouse, no water, no amenities at all. He's hired one or two people to work for them and they all live in a wall-less tin shed for several years trying to get the concern off the ground. He's still rooting around, despite the lack of roads out. Things get better, and then worse. Drought, mustering, illness, injury, three daughters, it does all sound very hard. Then he dies, and not only is the farm struggling, but he's also transferred the whole company to her name, and it's about a million dollars in debt, which she didn't know. Because this is an Australian story about money and the land, there's one daughter who sues her mother and is lost to her forever. Apparently the dad made some promises to her, and when he didn't pay up, she sued the compmay, which was all in her mother's name. However, triumph! Plucky Sara and her remaining two daughters turn things around, work very, very hard in a physical capacity that I cannot imagine, and save the farm! Hurrah! In 1991, Sara Henderson was awarded Australian Businesswoman of the Year. Good for her.

Problems: where did that million-acre farm come from? Not once does she mention any Aboriginal ownership or presence on the land, except for a couple of her staff who are portrayed as being stupid and/or drunk. It's just totally absent and such a necessary thing to mentione. Sara also says that her experience was the "most demanding, humiliating and challenging obstacle course any human could be expected to endure." Because I don't want to discount any woman's experience, I am not going to tell her that it was not unbelievably demanding, enormously humiliating, and extremely challenging. However, I feel like she's not in a position to describe it as "the most". I mean, it surely was hard, but moreso than being a refugee, a beaten wife, or even an Aboriginal woman in the Northern Territory in the 1970s? Sara Henderson died from breast cancer in 2005, sadly, having been a high profile advocate for Breast Screen Australia since her wayward in 1991. By this stage she had also having fallen out with all of her daughters. The farm was apparently wound up in 2011, following the ban on the live export cattle trade. 

Natural Born Keller by Amanda Keller

I felt after reading this book exactly the same as I did after reading Bonkers by Jennifer Saunders. Underwhelmed. So you’ve had a nice suburban life and then you grew up to be funny and pleasant. Some bumps along the way, nothing catastrophic. Some solid achievements in a male dominated field. You are human and I like you. The only point at which I was filled with the “bed shaking” laughter promised to me by my heroes Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb was Amanda’s dry recall that her husband’s porn name- the combination of your first pet and first street- was Carol Eastcote. I laughed and laughed and laughed at that.

In searching for a link to Jennifer Saunders’ autobiography I also discovered that there was an unauthorised biography written the same year. ~OooooOOOOOOohhhhh~. I’m sad that it’s not salacious, otherwise I would read that too. In the end she said it was “surprisingly kind and nice about me”. Boo.

The Anti-Cool Girl by Rosie Waterland

When my mum said she was going to read this I teased her because the breathless back cover endorsement was "by the author of The Bachelor recaps on Mamamia". High praise indeed. Ew, I said. Mum reads Mamamia. I wasn't wrong but I wasn't exactly right, either. She did have a much tougher childhood that I could ever have imagined. Alcoholic and drug-using parents, no stability, then shipped off to boarding school paid for by distant rich relatives who loved her only enough to pay for her schooling, but not enough to let her live with them when she finished year 12. Ouch to it all. I am glad that she found the loving embrace of blogging to be helpful to her. I also fully support her title, because clearly, the fictional construct of the "cool girl" is one of the most loathsome beasts to have ever sprung from a male imagination. Like Dracula or Slender Man, it will feed on your soul until your dead. I'm happy for Rosie Waterland that she's not dead.

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

I do like Mindy Kaling. I too am someone who backs myself, in general, and it's comforting to know that there are others out there of approximately my age and conventional attractiveness-level who also back themselves. I mean, look how much I back myself! I have just now put myself on the same level as someone who wrote an award-wining Broadway play, won two Emmys for TV writing, runs her own TV show, and wrote two books. I am a university manager. My achievements have been, let's say, more muted. I think she's got solid points. I think the point that she makes, and one I have come to on my own as well, is something that I understand is also a part of cognitive behaviour therapy. If you start to freak out or doubt yourself, have a look at the evidence. Is there evidence to suggest that you are stupid, make mistakes, or lack professional judgement? There is not. (I mean, you do have to shore this up with good professional judgement, hard work and reliability). So go forth and make that call! Mindy and I want you to back yourself.


Here it is time to link to one of my favourite blogs of the moment: Ask A Manager. Excellent work advice.

Ducks on the Pond by Anne Summers

Last week I read 'Ducks on the Pond' by Anne Summers. I really admire radicals. I am way too repressed to just let everything go, but I love the idea of potentially doing that. Imagine the freedom to stop caring, just let your hair grow and wear no makeup and walk out on your marriage and advocate for things you think are righteous. Amazing. But I am too afraid of disappointing my parents, so no, I won't. But good for Anne Summers for doing just that. I also loved how Anne and her circle of radicals are just outside my own. Anne herself is good friends with my boss. Two of her co-conspirators, Gail Hambly and Daniela Torsh, are mothers of friends of mine. Another, Ann Curthoys, taught me history at uni. I suppose I should go back and read 'Dammed Whores and God's Police' now. Imagine how radical those thoughts were at the time! Thank you, second wave feminists.

Happy birthday

Happy birthday, me. I am 35. Shudder. I've decided to blog another year of reading, only this one will have a theme. My absolute favourite books to read are memoirs by women. Famous women, non-famous women, ones I like, ones I don't, the whole gamut. So, I'm doing a whole year where that's all I read.
I'm going to sneak in two early entrants that I read last week. Firstly, Forever Today by Deborah Wearing. Here is the outline: Deborah, then a young PR employee at London department store John Lewis joins the staff choir and falls in love with the conductor, Clive Wearing, a conductor and music producer for the BBC who is quite a bit older than her. They get married and about a year later he gets a virus that turns out to be herpes simplex which then infects his brain very, very badly. He has encephalitis and huge amounts of brain damage (apparently there are literal holes in his brain tissue) with the resulting effect that he has the worst case of amnesia ever recorded. His memory is about 20 or 30 seconds in total. Every 30 seconds he 'wakes up' confused, convinced that he's been in a coma that has lasted years and years. The only thing he can remember is Deborah, and music. She advocates and cares for him. She divorced and then remarried him some years later and it's all fascinating and horrifying.

I also read Body Lengths by Leisel Jones (and ghostwriter). It was extracted in the weekend Herald a month or so ago, which is why I picked it up. Insanely talented and dedicated swimmer, an Olympian at age 15, wins a million medals but then also gets depressed and tries to kill herself at high altitude training camp. I guess it's just interesting to hear her say that she thought things would be different when she won a gold medal; her friends would like her more, her boyfriend wouldn't cheat on her, she'd finally be happy with her body. Then she wins the gold and everything's the same. I think for some years I also lived my life as if I was waiting for one special thing to happen, and then everything would finally be good and I could actually start living. I try not to do that anymore. Me and Leisel.

I happened to read Body Lengths in the same few days as I read These Things Happen by Greg Fleet. It occurs to me that there are several points in that book where Fleety, a bald junkie with none of this own teeth left, reflects on his looks and decides that he's quite ok. No model, but you know, fine, he's good enough, never had a problem with the ladies. Meanwhile Leisel, tall, blonde, athletic, with 8 Olympic gold medals tried to kill herself because her coaches thought she was fat. Men, what's your self esteem secret? Oh yeah. Patriarchy.

Onwards to a years of other women's lives.