The Long Hot Summer Read Online Free Page A

nearly fifty years would give the book the emotional resonance it needed. I had written about this extraordinary tale of family separation in
Au Revoir
when I described my early childhood with alcoholic parents, and my half-sister who left our dysfunctional home and never returned. After the book was released, a reader contacted me with information on Margaret’s whereabouts in Canada, and I was able to contact her and then visit her in person. It was the happiest of reunions, and I told the story in the new book.
    I curled up on the hotel bed and started to read through the entire manuscript from where I had begun writing more than twelve months before.
    It’s very difficult reading back over your own work and I oftenavoid doing so unless pressured into it by a persistent editor. But it was essential to get a feeling for the book as whole, so I set aside time just for reviewing it all. As I turned the pages I realised that what I had written had a hollow ring to it. It just didn’t make sense. The central character, me, was in a state of turmoil. My distress and confusion were obvious but there was little explanation for this, other than my menopausal condition and my questioning of my long-term relationship with my husband. I found the narrative deeply unsatisfying, and knew that anyone reading this book would feel as though they had been left dangling. I knew at that moment I had to tell the rest of story, no matter how painful. All or nothing. I returned to the computer and sat through the night reinstating the sections pertaining to the affair.
    Then I phoned David and told him of my change of heart.
    â€˜I think you’d better come home now,’ he said.
    So I packed up my belongings – having first emailed myself the finished manuscript as a back-up – and drove the bumpy one hour back to Yetholme. It was lovely to be home, although the paddocks were bleached white from the hot dry winds and one dam had completely dried up. The bushfires that had been raging in the region had not come close this time, but the potential was always there, the farm being surrounded by pine forests and remnants of native vegetation.
    I returned the computer to my office desk, hooked it up to the printer, then printed out the five hundred or so pages for David to read.
    It was a gut-churning day and a half. He sat in the back room drinking wine and smoking cigars while he methodically read through the book. Sometimes I’d hear him laugh, which was agreat relief. But then he’d go quiet for what seemed like hours at a time. It was nail-biting.
    Eventually he emerged and handed me back the well-thumbed pages.
    â€˜It’s an amazing book,’ he said. ‘Very honest, very funny, very sad. But I’m never going to like it. To be quite honest, I hate it. But I totally support your right to write about your life and what has been happening to you these last few years.’
    That was it. I hugged him but he stiffened under my embrace. He was still deeply hurt and traumatised by the events of the last year. But he wouldn’t stand in my way.
    He had flagged various pages in the text where he had concerns and together we worked to tidy up the final draft. Then to further demonstrate his support he actually delivered the final printed-out copies to the publisher’s Sydney offices. On deadline, double-spaced, with the pages tied together with red satin ribbon.
    My relief at getting the book finished while not destroying my marriage at the same time was palpable. I thought our troubles had finished, but they were only just beginning.

4
    My life has always been a juggling act. As a child I tried to juggle the unpredictable emotions of my unstable parents and from an early age developed all sorts of strategies for maintaining family harmony. I found that by being bright and cheerful, amusing and helpful, I could defuse family tensions and keep life on a more even keel. I carried these techniques for