Limericks

Résumé du livre

This is an autobiography by artist/writer Caroline Ambrus. It describes her life from her childhood in a country town in New South Wales in the 1940s. Her opening paragraphs states "On the day my father died I sat on the lounge with my mother at my parents home. My four brothers were arranged around the room, stern and silent, not knowing where to look or what to say. Before I could find any words of regret at dad's death, my mother told me "You were the cuckoo in our little nest". My mind immediately went blank. My words of grief were choked into silence and and a black crack in my consciousness threatened to swallow me. Her pronouncement was brutal, delivered in her well practiced, well timed manner, which snuffed out any rights of reply. She chose a time and a place when she was surrounded by the safety of her four sons. This forestalled any answer from me in case the poor, recently widowed woman got upset. A lifetime later, I realise that she was stating her own truth, as well as mine. I didn't belong in the family, I never did, ever since I could remember. My search for what her comment meant is found in the circumstances of my birth." Thereafter she traces her life decade by decade through experiences of parental and spousal violence, through to her art school and university studies, her nervous breakdown and her eventual recovery to achieve her ambition which was to be a writer and an artist.