Actually, that’s trite, and untrue. Everyone wants to share the beginnings of a love story. Everyone wants to sell you their version of an ending. But that long road in the middle? No-one wants to talk about that.
Even though – whatever our relationships look like – that’s where most of us are, most of the time.
My wise writer friend Andrew Daddo told me to be careful writing a book about a marriage that was fighting for its life. He thought it might brush up too closely against my own relationship. That a few too many intimate truths might spark out of the story and scald us.
Those words stuck with me, and I am happy to report that at the time of publication, no serious fires have been started between myself and the man who needs the biggest thanks for anything I get to do, Brent McKean. For your support, belief, love, humour, loyalty and ridiculous footwear, I love you, Brent. You are the heart of our family and the soul of my real life.
But in conversations on love and marriage and friendship and motherhood and daughterhood and moving through an imperfect world as imperfect people, it is my unruly band of female friends who have all the best insight.
A special mention to my great mate and cheerleader Penny Kaleta, whose love, loyalty and generosity of spirit keeps a whole army of girlfriends afloat, myself included.
And just so many thank yous to all my favourite conversationalist mates: Miranda Herron, Karen Graham, Rachel Corbett, Leigh Campbell, Claire Isaac, Lee Christian, Dave Christian, Sally Godfrey, Helen Campbell, Angie McMenamin, Kate De Brito, Jacqueline Lunn, Katie Denton, Tara Flannery, Mark Brandon, Lucy Walker, Mel Thomas, Nick Bhasin. Oh, and to Clive Phillips, for the carpentry tips.
Big appreciation to Mel Ware and Sam Marshall and Leanne McLaughlin and Rebecca Rodwell for all your hilarious, heart-lifting honesty. And camping.
And to Monique Bowley and Lucy Ormonde, my ridiculously talented and clever mates who always, always give me the best advice about books and whether to write them.
And to Mia Freedman and Jessie Stephens, who are the best people to talk to and with about absolutely everything, all of the time. Thank you to all the Outlouders who listen to podcasts and consider us friends to share with and trust their stories to. And Mia, obviously, gets all the extra snaps for giving me the confidence to have confidence in my ideas.
And thank you to Claire Kingston for making me an author in the first place.
Thanks to some of the remarkable women I’ve met through Mamamia this past year, who have helped me get better at perspective and writing in general: Kate Fisher, Annabelle Chauncey, Gabbie Stroud, Sally Hepworth. Thank you also to the lovely Tess Woods, for writerly introductions and sound advice.
And thanks to my family, because when do you ever get to thank your family and they are far away and c’mon, this is my moment, please: My parents, Judith and Jeffrey Wainwright, who are the people with all the books. My brother Tom Wainwright, his partner Emilie Powles, the no longer small nieces and nephews, Lila, Louie, Poppy and Henry.
To Shaun McKean and Kieran Fox and to Jessie Friedrich for all the distraction of small people at crucial moments.
To my soulmate Lindsay Frankel and her Ian McLeish. Because just thank you, always.
And thank you to my publisher Cate Paterson and editor Brianne Collins at Pan Macmillan for all your enthusiasm for this story, and for making this a much better book.
This footnote is being written in June, 2020, and we’re halfway through the strangest year any of us have lived yet. God knows how Lou and Josh’s marriage would have worked out if this was the year Lou had started her clandestine experiment and they had to survive lockdown homeschool. Which brings me to Matilda and Billy, who are the kids unfortunate enough to have been cooped up with me as I worked and edited and shouted and stared into the fridge for unfeasibly long periods of time. You two are the very best reason to do anything.
About the author
Holly Wainwright is a writer, editor and broadcaster who lives in Sydney with her partner and their young family. She’s the Head of Content at women’s media company Mamamia and I Give my Marriage a Year is her third novel.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
First published 2020 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Holly Wainwright 2020
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781760982782
Cover design: Christa Moffitt, Christabella Designs
Cover images: Shutterstock/Stocksy
The author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for
material used in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked
should contact the publisher.
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