Everyone wanted a fun, bubbly mother like mine. Everyone loved how she dressed us up in stylish matching outfits. Five little girls in a row. Everyone wanted a family like ours. Picnics, parties and practical jokes. Popular parents always up for a good time. 

 

Not me. I found the whole thing mortifying. 
 

The truth is, I was terrified of my bubbly, popular, fun-loving mother. Even as an adult.
 

I sat with Mum as she was dying of cancer. And I felt nothing but numb. No sadness. No grief. 
 

Grief catches up with us of course. It caught up with me fifteen years later in a writing workshop. I wrote a story about Mum dying. That story brought her back to life. Writing it brought me back to life too. It opened the dam on a lifetime of stories I needed to tell. 
Unlikely Stories of a Perfect Childhood is the result of five years of talking, questioning, arguing, crying and laughing with my dead mother. It’s the happy ending we didn’t have in real life. It’s her book as much as it’s mine.

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Collaborators

I self-published this book with the help of Clairmont Publishing Services. 

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Please judge the book by its cover! It was designed by Jo Constable at The Design Space Gallery and illustrated by me.

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