As Domestic Violence Prevention Month in May draws to a close, two new books by Queensland authors offer new perspectives on surviving the violence affecting a quarter of Australian families.
Will I ever be who I am? from broken to brave, by Sunshine Coast author Gay Liddington, is a gripping story of overcoming sexual abuse. Her story has a couple of differences from the typical trauma memoir.
Sunshine Coast author Gay Liddington
The book follows in the footsteps of authors like Trent Dalton with its distinctly Queensland setting and tone. It also depicts the Australian Defence Force in a positive light, in contrast to media coverage of Ben Roberts-Smith’s court cases and separate reports of harassment of female recruits at Duntroon tarnishing the ADF’s reputation.
Will I ever be who I am?, launched this month, is partly set in the Wide Bay town of Howard and the Central Queensland town of Mackay and recalls life in the 1950s and 60s: a patriarchal culture where men worked and drank beer while women tended to the children.
It was a time when child abuse was often swept under the carpet.
Liddington describes how she joined the army to escape her stepfather’s sexual abuse and how the ADF wrapped protective arms around their new recruit when he continued to stalk and threaten her.
Young Gay Liddington
Army life was good and she was free, but Liddington’s troubles were far from over. She tried valiantly to create a happy, safe family but the trauma stalked her until she sought therapeutic support to overcome ‘the monster inside her’ and gained the courage to tell her story.
Her writing boldly declares that her life of secrets is over.
Liddington holds accountable her abuser and the patriarchal system that refused to help her when she asked for it. Sadly, this included members of her family and the police. Like Gisèle Pelicot’s brave decision to go public in France about her husband’s sexual abuse, Australian Gay Liddington’s book publicly calls out her rapist stepfather and the system that protected him.
Liddington had to save herself because the system did not. Her story of how she did it is highly recommended.
Memoir shines light on sibling abuse
In my father’s suitcase, fellow Sunshine Coast author, Mary Garden, had to save herself from a different kind of family violence: sibling abuse from her younger sister.
Sunshine Coast author Mary Garden’s book shines a light on sibling abuse
Rigorous academic research has found sibling aggression is the most common form of family violence. Garden candidly narrates the way her mentally ill sister abused her throughout their childhood and adult lives.
While the book (released in 2024) is not a pretty picture of happy families, Garden quotes the Anne Lamott epigraph: ‘If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.’
Garden’s sister physically and verbally assaulted her, plagiarised her book on their famous aviator father and threatened her to the extent that Mary Garden feared her sister might kill her.
Due to the sister’s mental illness, she was not held accountable for her behaviour and this is what Garden’s book unflinchingly does.
Mary Garden (centre) with her siblings
The author says sibling abuse is usually dismissed as ‘sibling rivalry’ meaning much needed interventions don’t occur. Garden experienced sibling abuse as ‘a spectre that has haunted me for much of my life’.
She now says: ‘I bear the scars from my rocky life but I believe the violence which threaded through it has ripped open my heart to make me more empathetic and understanding.’
Both authors of these harrowing books describe how their recovery from family violence and trauma helped them develop new qualities of strength, fearlessness, self-compassion and empathy they needed to survive.
Can trauma be beautiful?
Pop star Pink told NPR Radio her hit song Beautiful Trauma is about how ‘life is really traumatic, and it feels … like it’s getting more so. But … there’s really beautiful people in the world and there’s more good than bad. My dad always says something to me: ‘I wish you enough’. He means I wish you enough rain to be able to enjoy the sunshine. And I wish you enough hard times to be able to enjoy the easy bits. And that’s beautiful trauma to me.’
These two books by Mary Garden and Gay Liddington show this beauty of trauma in the way they have transformed the harmful effects of violence in their families of origin into new lives of strength, freedom, creativity and tranquillity in their later years.
Their must-read memoirs are compelling, vulnerable, brave and well-written.
Will I ever be who I am? from broken to brave is available at www.edwinashaw.com, Rosetta Books Maleny, The Candle & Quill Bookshop, Montville and Annie’s Bookshop, Peregian. An eBook will soon be available on Amazon.
my father’s suitcase just won the 2025 Independent Publisher Book Awards (the Ippy Awards) Bronze Award for Regional Non-Fiction from Australia and New Zealand. It’s published by Justitia Books and available at marygarden.com.au, in bookshops and Booktopia.
