Since retiring from her position of Fellow in Australian Literature at Macquarie University, she has written full-time from her home in the hills on the south coast of New South Wales. The following extract appears courtesy of the author and publisher Penguin. But since that terrible morning last year I seem to be thrown into a worm-pit of confusion. There is more forgiveness, Father Donellan told me in that hopeless hopeful voice of his, than we can ever assess. You might have thought I could see it all coming.
Landladies get very possessive.
But look after them I did, despite the appalling blanketing heat, the jellied air of monsoons that never hatched. Arguing often as not with that military martinet who ran the place. It wasn't easy. Nothing is easy. Doctor Quigley, Matron Tullman, Misses Starck and Weber.