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'Memories and secrets buried for over twenty years surfaced after Mary-Rose MacColl gave birth to a much longed-for baby.
'I am by nature a private person. Secrets are different from privacy. They are things you are forced to keep to yourself, by family, friends, by your own shame. Secrets like these come to the surface one day and demand an airing.
'Emerging from an unconventional, boisterously happy childhood, Mary-Rose MacColl was a rebellious teenager. And when, at the age of fifteen, her high-school teacher and her husband started inviting Mary-Rose to spend time with them, her parents were pleased that she now had the guidance she needed to take her safely into young adulthood.
'It wasn't too long, though, before the teacher and her husband changed the nature of the relationship with overwhelming consequences for Mary-Rose. Consequences that kept her silent and ashamed through much of her adult life. Many years later, safe within a loving relationship, all of the long-hidden secrets and betrayals crashed down upon her and she came close to losing everything.
'In this poignant and brave true story, Mary-Rose brings these secrets to the surface and, in doing so, is finally able to watch them float away.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Large print.
Works about this Work
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Mary-Rose MacColl, For a Girl
2017
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 22-28 April 2017; 'In her memoir For a Girl, Mary-Rose MacColl quotes the American poet Louise Bogan. “No woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her art, a portion of its lost heart.” It’s apt, because throughout her harrowing story, MacColl is conscious of the “why’” of this book. Why is she telling complete strangers these most intimate and awful things? “I am by nature a private person,” she says, and later, “I am struggling here for I want most of all to be truthful.” She is hesitant to write about some things, she admits. “How can I hope to make someone else understand?”' (Introduction)
-
Mary-Rose MacColl, For a Girl
2017
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 22-28 April 2017; 'In her memoir For a Girl, Mary-Rose MacColl quotes the American poet Louise Bogan. “No woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her art, a portion of its lost heart.” It’s apt, because throughout her harrowing story, MacColl is conscious of the “why’” of this book. Why is she telling complete strangers these most intimate and awful things? “I am by nature a private person,” she says, and later, “I am struggling here for I want most of all to be truthful.” She is hesitant to write about some things, she admits. “How can I hope to make someone else understand?”' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2018 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Award for Non-Fiction
- 2017 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Non-Fiction Book Award
- 2017 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance
- 2017 finalist Queensland Literary Awards — The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year
