AustLit logo

AustLit

Meg Vertigan Meg Vertigan i(9553600 works by)
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 y separately published work icon The Strong Dress Meg Vertigan , Glebe : Puncher and Wattmann , 2023 25539489 2023 single work novel 'It is 1977 and Kate is a seventeen-year-old HSC student from Sydney's North Shore. She has dreams of becoming the next Ita Buttrose and editing Cleo. Yet while the 1970's was the time of free love and peace this movement has not yet hit Kate's suburban home in Beecroft. Kate's carefree behaviour leads her parents to seek the advice of a maverick Sydney psychiatrist, Dr Jack Grafton. She is subjected to Slumber Therapy where she is given a cocktail of drugs that leave her confused about what is real. Dr Grafton claimed Slumber Therapy he could cure all mental illness, from schizophrenia to not getting along with your parents. Yet after multiple patient deaths and their investigation he commits suicide. His colleague, a fellow unnamed psychiatrist, tells the story of his talented and erratic friend. The Strong Dress is a tragic dance of power, gender and scientific over-confidence in 1970s suburban Australia.' 

(Publication summary)
1 Mum’s Secret Tomato Soup Recipe Meg Vertigan , 2015 single work short story
— Appears in: SWAMP , 30 April no. 16 2015;
X