The Waiting Girl  was in part inspired by the story of my aunt, an artist and musician who spent much of her life being treated in institutions for schizophrenia

The Waiting Girl  at the same time explores an often troubled and unresolved relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia at the same time offering opportunities for optimism. The novel, set partly in The Coorong with its falling water levels and toxic lakes, serves as a background metaphor for the novel’s unexpected revelations.

The Waiting Girl  operates by stealth, building effects gradually and in layers. The twin narratives of nephew and aunt, in first and third person voices respectively, weave back and forth, revealing secrets incrementally for a final dramatic effect.

The Waiting Girl  will appeal to readers for whom current issues relating to environmental challenge and indigenous rights are paramount but who want to read an engaging narrative at the same time. It is a story which is prepared to face head on contemporary issues of power, sexual identity and mental illness.

Extracts:

“June 13th 1970.

Patient was sitting motionless in a chair with her head back. She said she had been paralysed at home according to God’s will. She shows considerable clouding of consciousness with defective grasp and faulty memory. She correctly gives her year of birth as 1918 but she cannot name the current year, month or day of the week. She knows the address of her brother yet she states she cannot recall the number of her own house. There is little volunteered at the interview apart from: ‘I don’t feel well.’ It is impossible to establish much contact or to probe content at the moment. Recommended massive Largactil therapy and observation.”

"Mostly Lily wanders in the corridors all day aimlessly but sometimes they remember to let patients out into the airing yard and she always runs to the fence. She thinks she could just keep running forever but when she gets to the fence there’s always a big ditch that she can’t cross over. Later she discovers that it’s called a ‘ha-ha’ but she realises that the joke’s on her. So she just runs to the other fence and looks out into the paddocks full of grasses and olive trees, their leaves turning from green to grey in the chill wind.

‘Lily, come back, come back’ the orderlies call out to her but she’s already gone, running down the sandy track along the river with the willows caressing her face and then over high dunes, feet sinking into the deep sand. ‘Lily, come back, come back.’ Sometimes, especially on hot days, she runs through dark green valleys with carpets of sweet-smelling mosses and white violets that she wants to stuff in her mouth and taste. ‘Lily, come back.’

Lily realises she’s being punished for something but she’s not sure what she’s supposed to have done. She just concentrates on listening to her voices. They will always tell her what she needs to do. Frankie will tell her."

Melrose Mountjoy (‘Rosy’ to his mates) has a few things going against him. He’s been pensioned off from the Police Force at the ripe old age of 28 because of advancing ‘Retinitis Pigmentosa’ that progressively affects his peripheral eyesight. His assistant, Ramona, a work experience girl with many piercings, is a lead singer with the heavy Metal Band ‘The Screaming Mammas.’

Melrose is suspicious of modern forensic evidence but has an uncanny ability to see the evidence in front of him that others have missed. And the bodies (many dressed in penguin suits) just keep popping up.

And even though he’s gay (partnered with Josh the shaved-all-over weekend boyfriend) his parents (refugees to Australia from Franco’s Spain) expect a grandchild by any means whatsoever.

How will our hero solve crime, produce a grandchild and avoid attending Heavy Metal concerts?

Extract:

“A body that’s been floating in the river for a couple of days is no pretty sight and all the indications were that this body hadn’t even been pretty to start with. Don’t believe dear reader that Melrose Mountjoy was a frivolous man easily influenced by beauty or outward appearances. Au contraire. Quite the opposite. He was the kind of man who looked into the heart, past the perfectly sculpted skin and fashionable clothes. This corpse had probably had a heart of gold too but six times out of ten that’s usually what got people murdered in the first place. Heart of gold but just plain stupid to not beware the greed and treachery of human beings. “