Stripping in a Limo
You may have noticed that there has been silence from the coal-face of the Davenport family lately. It’s Alison’s fault. To remind you, she is the other half of Peterandalison, aka my lovely but scarily competent sister-in-law. Anyhow, we’re at a family gathering a month or two ago and she announces to me very efficiently, “I’ve been reading your blog.” She adds, “And some of my friends have, too.” And even though the whole point of this blog is that people read it, somehow it freezes me up to the point where there has now been no Davenport news for weeks. There’s a book I’m working on at the moment, aka “the Turkey book” aka Cappadocia, in which two of the characters talk about what...
Book Wednesday – The Naked Years
This book by Marianne Mackinnon was one of the many very personal memoirs that I read by people who grew up in Germany during the Nazi era, and one of the best. It’s another one that confirms my sense that individual stories do far more to enhance our understanding than more sweeping overviews, although I read enough of those, too. Marianne is still a child when war breaks out, still learning to live with her parents’ divorce and its effect on her. Divorce has set her apart, created a loneliness and otherness in her that I think gives her a greater sensitivity to what is happening around her, especially when she is sent to board with a half-Jewish family. On leaving school, Marianne is sent to the east as part of her compulsory service, and she’s...
Book Wednesday – Maus and MetaMaus
In the lead-up to launching Saving Gerda next month, I want to write about some of the books I used when researching this novel. My eldest son and I have been fans of Art Spiegelman’s unique and ground-breaking and Pulitzer Prize winning Maus duo for years. We’ve both read it multiple times, and loaned it to others to read, with the result that it’s now looking quite well-worn and shabby. Even though I’d been reading about the Nazi era and the Holocaust on and off since studying it in detail at school, Maus still gripped me as if I’d never encountered this stuff before. Saving Gerda ends eight months before the start of World War Two, and yet the war and its consequences are there. We know what’s going to happen. The book...
Book Wednesday – “Jackson’s Track”
A friend of ours has asked me to write his biography. He’s one of those Australian men you don’t meet much anymore, an ex-stockman, horse-breaker and drover, who grew up in the kind of poverty you don’t see much anymore, either – the couldn’t-afford-shoes, house-with-a-dirt-floor kind. There is just as much poverty around now, but it’s different in its details, seems to me. I’ve said yes to the biography, but have warned him I’ve never attempted something like this before, and it’ll take a while. He wants to record things on tapes, and that scares me, because I’ve listened to those kinds of tape and, with the best will in the world, people ramble and say things out of context and repeat...
Book Wednesday – 100 books to read before you die
From somewhere – I’m going out on a limb and saying I suspect the internet – Laura has produced a list that reflect someone’s idea of the Best 100 English-language Novels Of All Time and we have agreed that as a long-term project we are going to read every book on the list. We were allowed to highlight the ones we’d already read, and we don’t have to read those again but I think I will, because my memory of most of them is too poor. Laura found she could only highlight two, but then she is only fourteen. My score was nineteen, but it would have been higher if I’d allowed myself to include the “I’m pretty sure I’ve read that, but can’t totally remember,” books, and the “I absolutely know...
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As Lilian Darcy, I've been writing romance and women's fiction since my early twenties. Liz is my fictional alter ego. Between us, we write about family, friends, horses, books, reading, writing and life.
When people tell me what they love about my books, they always mention the same things - the warmth and emotion, the characters who feel totally real. I hope this blog captures some of the same flavor.
The beautiful picture framing this page, is by well-known pastel artist Amanda McLean, who makes stunning interpretations of the Australian landscape. Amanda is a friend of mine, the original of this picture hangs on our wall, and she generously gave me permission to use it. This is her website and her blog