Second Half First

It was only to be expected that the author of the ground-breaking Poppy would confound expectations of the form of her own memoir. The memoir of her mother was experimental in form, filling gaps in the historical record with questions and imaginative reconstructions that treated her mother’s life with respect. In Second Half First, Modjeska subverts chronology and focusses as much on place and on literature as she does on people. It’s very interesting to read.

Beginning the memoir at a pivotal moment in her life – turning 40, breaking up with a long-term partner just as she was entertaining tentative thoughts about a child with him, Modjeska explores without self-pity the twists and turns of her life. She is one of that generation show more of women who were role models for women like me: a little older; and a good deal more high profile in terms of career; and forging through the stuffy conservatism of post war Australia to make it a more exciting place. Modjeska didn’t need a #ReadWomen hashtag to get reviewed in the major dailies: her books were part of mainstream conversations from the moment they were in print. But in middle age, she had to confront the tangle of her personal life. Her mother had died and she had hoped that a child could assuage her grief. It was not to be, and feminism had not prepared her for the emotional cost of some of the choices she had made.

Scraping back the layers of her life with disarming honesty, she tells us how The House on the Corner was more than just a place to live. It was interesting to see the disdain with which Modjeska describes suburban living and the concept of the family home, because her concept of communal living as a supportive home base is so different to mine. Simultaneously reading Anne Summers’ Damned Whores and God’s Police I understand why some feminists think that we need to reinvent family life in the suburbs, but I have found a great sense of community in my patch of the suburbs. As an incorrigible introvert, I would find the idea of communal living to be a sustained form of torture.

But it seems to have suited Modjeska.

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A lovely memoir, covering the roughly 30 years of Modjeska's life since she turned 40 and broke up with a long-term partner. The book reads as though you're having a long and slightly rambling conversation, following threads as they come up and covering lots of disparate ground (writing, love, feminism, children, PNG, grief, art, family, travel, death and on and on and on). The writing is easy and beautiful and Modjeska is a lovely story-teller. Excellent.