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Good Reading : October 2010
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24 goodreading ı OCTOBER 2010 When she was a girl in Hungary, my mother,Veronika, studied with the first violinist at the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. She seems like a princess to me in the few old photos that remain. Her life was a constant whirl of opera, theatre and balls. My father, Zoltan, was different -- a far mer and a trader who worked and loved the land. He also loved philosophy and was deeply interested in the tumultuous politics of the time. Then came war. Food and medicine were scarce, bombs were dropping in Budapest, and bodies were trapped in collapsed buildings. My mother's father was a university professor. When he became ill with tuberculosis my mother, who was only a girl at the time, crossed the devastated city to find medicine for him. My father returned to Hungary after three ter rible years imprisoned in forced labour in Russia. He started working for the underground -- helping to create fake Swiss passports, setting up houses to illegally hide orphaned children, and allocating medicine. My mother met my father during her search for medicine for her ailing father, and my father gave her morphine. So began their jour ney together, and they eventually arrived in Australia. The stories of war-tor n refugees have been well documented in books and films, and in some ways these stories can seem like clichés. But the experience of war, escape, and finding a new home can never become clichéd, with its far-reaching impact on the next generation. My parents spoke with heavy accents, missed the country of their youth, and placed high expectations on their children. But they were filled with hope for the freedom that Australia offered. Writing was an escape from my home life when I was a child. Many of my stories were about saving my family.Today my writing combines the emotions of childhood and adolescence with adult emotions. My recent short story 'Days of Thailand' is an example of this combination of youth and adult themes. It's one of 20 stories in the anthology Fear Factor:Terror incognito, a book about the impact of terrorism from a personal viewpoint, which also includes stories from writers such as Salman Rushdie and David Malouf. When my father died, my children were caught up in the grief of their grandfather's death.When their father left, they grieved over the divorce. I began writing to help them make sense of it all. But it soon became more than that. I realised that I could write and that the sharing of stories was an unrealised passion that had lain dor mant within me for decades. I wanted to write particularly for children and young adults, because they have little experience of dealing with the world. At times they get lost; I felt lost as a child, and my children felt lost. I wanted to write for young people so that they could find their own stories in my books. I hope my books have been healing pathways for young people trying to navigate through these common but painful experiences. Writing stories underpinned by social justice themes is very fulfilling. It's as if I'm balancing that refugee struggle of my family with hope. One of my books, I Am Jack, has become a rite-of-passage book on school bullying; Super Jack is making it okay for kids to talk about divorce and blended families; and Butterflies looks at the impact of disabilities on young people. My new children's novel, Always Jack, examines themes that affect so many families, such as increasingly frail grandparents and parents with cancer. I was diagnosed with breast cancer when my children were six and nine, then again when heywere15and18--andIam eing treated for it again. The first urgeries and treatments were tough, ccompanied by chronic pain and other complications. I was working, divorced, and had to look after two young children and a dependent mother. SoIhadalottodealwithallatonce. Cancer is a family issue. It's a community issue. So I wrote Always Jack for my family and the wider community. It's a warm, funny and engaging story in its own right. But its real strength is in how it reaches out to kids and their families when someone they know is affected by cancer. Always Jack is published by HarperCollins, r rp $14.99. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. www.cancercouncil.com.au Susanne’s family in about 1960 from the heart SUSANNE GERVAY outlines how childhood experiences triggered her empathy for people experiencing different types of suffering, and she talks about her new novel, Always Jack, which helps young people with seriously ill family members to deal with this harrowing experience. behind the book Susanne’s mother, Veronika Gervay, at 18 years of age Susanne Gervay
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