The Ballad of Siddy Church
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 | ISBN 9781875559619 | Paperback | 195 x 130 mm | 261 pp
Reviews
The Ballad of Siddy Church is strong stuff: raw moonshine with a kick to it.’
–David Eggleton, The Listener (NZ)
Praise be to writer Lin Van Hek, who held the narrative with a strong hand and a lethal eye. The thread is never lost, the movements complete, the skill of a writer who packaged the events of life into poetry.’
–Glenn Robbins, Pandora
‘There is a touch of the magic realists in Van Hek’s exuberant use of imagery, a feeling of life itself as both miracle and mystery.’
–Lesley Beasley, Canberra Times
‘A tale told in the most beautiful teasing prose. [Also] one of the funniest and wickedest books around.’
–Tarek Bazley, Critic, NZ
‘This is a riveting story, complex and wonderful to read.’
–Readings Bookletter
'An exhilarating read.’
–Jenny Pausacker, The Age
‘She writes like an angel giving the devil her due.'
–Keri Hulme
Table of Contents
The Poetry of Aunties 1
The Last Days of Rufus 5
Joe Flood’s Sleep 9
The Great Bloody Flood 21
1939 . . . Siddy’s Yarn 34
Cheek-to-Cheek at Mantel’s Cafe 48
The Boulevard of Broken Dreams 58
For Her Least Look 71
During That Time 79
The Sleepout 91
Back Alive 107
A Girl as Loud as the Sky 118
Our Own Sex 128
Secret Hidings and Women’s Business 138
Being Schooled 149
Moving on with the Wordstretcher 158
Eadie Wilt Meets Anna Wesoloski 170
Truly Speak 174
Mr Mott and the Bathing Beauty 181
Legs 189
He Came through the Door
in His Shirt Sleeves . . . Quickly 195
Slags, Bitches, Sluts and More 204
Little Things that Hang Down 211
Was It 1956? When Childhood Ended
and Eadie Wanted to be Jewish 224
Anna’s Box 234
Cry Yourself Blind 249
The Inheritance 256
Earthly Cares Spilling 258