Mary K. Pershall

If you came of age in Melbourne in the early 1970s, you will love this book too. (If you can get hold of a copy).

A Long Way Home (1992) is the first solo adult novel by Melbourne author Mary K Pershall. She is well-known as the author of children's books, some of which were co-written with her daughters, either Katherine or Anna with whom co-wrote the much-loved Two Weeks in Grade Six in 2004. A Long Way Home is a fictionalised version of Pershall's journey from Bible Belt Iowa to a teaching job in a Melbourne secondary school at a time when many American teachers were lured to Victoria to overcome an acute teacher shortage.

In the novel Anne Skasey loves life in Melbourne so much that she stays well past her 18-month contract, and it is not until the 1980s when her boyfriend Len wants commitment that she considers going home to her ageing parents. She is torn between the lifestyle she loves and her memories of family and the vast open prairies of rural Iowa.

Written from her perspective in first person, the story is woven through sections which reveal her memories of home in America: family life, school and her first employment while she waits for the Australian job offer to materialise, alongside her new life in Australia where she enjoys the fruits of modernity and vibrant city life. The religious and social conformity of her American homeland is jettisoned for an independent income, share housing with a gay friend, and ad hoc weekends with various boyfriends (including a married man) until Len becomes a serious contender. She loves riding her bike around the inner city, shopping at the Vic Market, and falling in love with the North Fitzroy/Carlton lifestyle (which you can gauge from this article at Lisa Phelan Design.) With various boyfriends, she takes trips further afield too, to the Great Ocean Road and to Woods Point, and when she transitions into working on the school magazines that the Education Department used to produce, her work takes her to all sorts of interesting places, including a tattoo parlour and homing pigeons in a suburban backyard.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/01/30/a-long-way-home-1992-by-mary-k-pershall/… (more)

At a very low point in my life a few months ago I decided I needed to read some totally mindless fluff that would allow me to forget my problems while at the same time giving me some hope for a happily ever after in the midst of a relationship full of seemingly insurmountable problems. Having read one of Pershall’s previous books, I decided this one might fit the bill. It did. The subject of the book is my historical hunk, William Marshall. But Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Greatest Knight this is not - as it falls more into the bad-bodice-ripper variety – but that’s OK. With a brooding, moody William, an irritating Isabel and a series of misunderstandings that made more sense to the characters then they did to me, this was a mess. But admittedly, a mess I couldn’t stop reading! Maybe it was my mood. But it did what it was supposed to do at the time and so that counts for something.… (more)