The Ballad of Siddy Church ebook (PDF)
I was a child with many aunties. The hotel was teeming with them ... I grew up with the poetry of aunties.
Lin Van Hek writes about the poetry of aunties in a novel that is at once thrilling and filled with the memories of wilful women. When Eadie Wilt disappears during the flood, everyone thinks she has drowned. But Siddy Church's granddaughter has more life to live in a household filled with stories and larger-than-life characters.
Filled with strong and unconventional women, The Ballad of Siddy Church tells of the lasting effect this larrikin mob has on the life of Edie Wilt. At the centre of the mayhem is Siddy Church.
My grandmother was a difficult woman, you could not get around it. She was born on three different occasions in three locations and she said her name was Siddy Church. Late at night she would sit like a giant curious toad, her heavy-lidded eyes turning with her head, her pupils like magic bullets about the room. Her past was too big and too diverse for her to govern, people talked about her shady past. She had relinquished her right to her own story.
1997 | 261 pp