After a 30-year absence Agnes is returning to Australia, the country of her birth, at the request of her aging, narcissistic mother. Reluctant as she is to return, having undergone a long period of psychotherapy she now entertains a hope that burning questions will be answered, haunting mysteries solved, and buried memories encouraged into the light. Something has blighted her life since childhood. Something has cast a long shadow over her existence, affecting her ability to grasp at life fully, to develop sustained relationships and to appreciate her own sense of self-worth.
In a leafy suburb of Sydney, a chance meeting in front of her early childhood home resurrects memories of a traumatic event. This represents the moment young Agnes starts to realise, and repress, feelings of confusion, cruelty and alienation from those who should love her the most. Agnes – A childhood betrayed and reclaimed is the revelatory, true account of one woman’s determination to grapple with – and heal – the ills that have beset her past.
As the missing pieces of the family puzzle gradually fall into place this brave woman’s search for the truth is vindicated. Decades of mental health challenges, from amnesia to acquired dyslexia to self-limiting thoughts are ultimately overcome, and an irrepressible
spirit released.
Tabela de Conteúdo
Part One
Chapter 1 Surviving Daniel
Chapter 2 Sydney, Mother, And Aunt Marnie
Chapter 3 Woolloomooloo Wharf
Chapter 4 Rosemont
Chapter 5 The North Shore
Part Two
Chapter 6 Chatswood
Chapter 7 Penicillin
Chapter 8 The Farm
Chapter 9 Roseville Baths
Chapter 10 David Jones
Chapter 11 The Dressmaker
Part Three
Chapter 12 Mother Miriam
Chapter 13 Truths and Lies
Chapter 14 The Inquisition at Rosemont
Chapter 15 Maroubra
Chapter 16 Coogee
Chapter 17 Acting The Part
Chapter 18 Rosary Villa
Chapter 19 Charles Burgess
Part Four
Chapter 20 A Child for God
Chapter 21 Rebecca Lea
Chapter 22 The Homecoming
Part Five
Chapter 23 Aunt Marnie Revisited
Chapter 24 The Reunion at Rosemont
Chapter 25 Her Brother Bert
Chapter 26 Her Brother Jim
Chapter 27 Madge at Home
Chapter 28 Uncle Ben and the Open Road
Chapter 29 Filial Extortion and New Discoveries
Sobre o autor
Judy King grew up in Sydney Australia. After a troubled beginning, she emerged in the nineteen sixties to establish a successful Real Estate and property development business in Paddington. Selling up to travel the world, she settled with her husband for a year in London, where she divided her time between working in an antique shop in King´s Road selling antique scientific instruments and attending an art school in Lambeth. On the strength of her art work in London, she was accepted back in Sydney into a two year ceramics course at the Sydney College of the Arts. More recently she has divided her time between making art and renovating old houses in Mallorca. She currently lives in Soller in an old stone house she renovated with an orchard behind. A walker all her life, her greatest joy is to follow the donkey paths up into the mountains that surround the valley she lives in below.