Georgia Blain's life has never been private. As the daughter of renowned journalist and broadcaster, Anne Deveson, Ms Blain and her brothers were often the subject matter of columns and opinion pieces. Here, the author reminisces on what it was like to grow up as a shy, intelligent child in the shadow of two well-known parents.
One of the greatest epiphanies for Ms Blain was that the concept of a "normal" family simply does not exist and nor can it. "It wasn't until years later that I realised the obvious – the difference between us and that mythical normal family I was certain existed – was in fact the fiction. There was no standard against which we could measure ourselves," she writes.
From historical moments, such as the overthrow of the Whitlam Government through to the birth of her first child, Odessa, and the passing away of her father, Ms Blain's book is at once personal and universal – as the title implies.
By contrast, Kathleen Stewart's memoir, The After Life , is an emotional, heart-wrenching experience that lingers like a well-remembered dream. The book focuses mainly on one year – 1976, a year of finality. It was in this year that Ms Stewart finished high school and the last year that her family were together before divorce and the later death of her father.
It's worth noting that this is Ms Stewart's first published work in seven years and her writing is still as poetic and vivid as before. Exploring similar themes, such as mother-daughter relationships and life in suburbia, the book takes a dark twist as Ms Stewart eventually finds herself in a psychiatric ward battling addiction before moving overseas to focus on her writing.
Anyone who has been lucky enough to have read Ms Stewart's work will know that she has the gift of imbuing humour into the toughest of situations and The After Life is no different. What also surfaces are the harsh social attitudes of the '60s and '70s, eras where violence within families was condoned. On reflection, she notes: "No one said anything. That's how we dealt with it."
Georgia Blain and Kathleen Stewart may both be Australian, but their lives are worlds apart. What their respective memoirs share is an appreciation of the past, its influence on the present and a celebration of life at its toughest and best.