by Liz Byrski
Bad Behaviour
One mistake can change a life forever.
Zoë is living a conventional suburban life in Fremantle. She works, she gardens and she loves her supportive husband Archie and their three children. But the arrival of a new woman into her son Daniel’s life unsettles Zoë. Suddenly she is feeling angry and hurt, and is lashing out at those closest to her.
In Sussex, England, Julia is feeling nostalgic as she nurses her best friend through the last painful stages of cancer. Her enthusiastic but dithering husband Tom is trying to convince Julia to slow down. Although she knows Tom means well, Julia cannot help but feel frustrated that he is pushing her into old age before she is ready. But she knows she is lucky to have him. She so nearly didn’t...
These two women’s lives have been shaped by the decisions they made back in 1968 – when they were young, idealistic and naïve. In a world that was a whirl of politics and protest, consciousness raising and sexual liberation, Zoë and Julia were looking for love, truth and their own happy endings. They soon discover that life is rarely that simple, as their bad behaviour leads them down paths that they can never turn back from.
Praise for Bad Behaviour:
‘This tale of people now in their 50s and 60s and the way their lives have been shaped by choices made 30 years before is … compulsive reading’ SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘The importance of women friends is a theme woven deeply into the fabric of Liz’s books. Can we escape the past or do our mistakes come back to haunt us anyway?’ AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY, ‘Book of the Month’
Trip of a Lifetime
When Heather Delaney is injured in a shocking act of violence, her life is thrown off course. Struggling to return to work, she is haunted by the incident. Was it random or personal? Will they try again?
Heather is not the only one who is rocked by the attack. Her brother, Adam, and his second wife, Jill, already juggling the demands of work and pre-teen children, find their marriage is straining at the seams. Adam disappears into his music while Jill attempts to keep all the balls in the air. Shaun, Heather’s offsider, young, loyal and ambitious, questions his relationship; Diane, an office volunteer, can’t stop the bitterness pouring out after a mid-life divorce; and Heather’s aunt, Barbara, is about to have her peaceful rural retirement disrupted by conflicting loyalties.
Then along comes Heather’s old flame, Ellis. Romantic, flamboyant, determined to recapture the past and take control of the future, he seems to have all the answers. But can it really be that easy?
Belly Dancing for Beginners
Gayle and Sonya are a study in contrasts: one reserved and cautious, the other confident and outspoken. But their very different lives will be turned upside down when they impulsively join a belly dancing class.
Marissa, their teacher, is sixty, sexy, and very much her own person, and as Gayle and Sonya learn about the origins and meaning of the dance, much more than their muscle tone begins to change. Gayle, crippled by the secrets at the heart of her marriage, is forced to face who and what she has become; the seriously single Sonya begins to explore her isolation from her family; and even Marissa, accustomed to seeing other women changed by the dance, must finally confront a horrifying event from her own past.
And then there are the men in their lives: Oliver, deeply confused about why his politically correct attitude to women never quite seems to work; Brian, blissfully unaware that he’s sailing towards the rocks; and Frank, who’s battling his own demons.
Belly Dancing for Beginners is a warm-hearted, moving, and often outright funny story of what can happen when women and men are brave enough to reveal who they really are.
Praise for Belly Dancing for Beginners:
‘Byrski’s forte is getting inside women’s heads and hearts’ AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY
‘A very funny book yet one with a serious point – women in their 50s and beyond can still have challenging, rewarding and hugely enjoyable lives’ SUNDAY TASMANIAN
‘Byrski’s women have something of the wisdom of age but still grapple with the complexities of relationships with husbands, children, parents and friends. They are also still intrigued by romantic possibilities and the search for love’ WEST AUSTRALIAN
Food, Sex & Money
It’s almost forty years since the three ex-convent girls left school and went their separate ways, but finally they meet again.
Bonnie, rocked by the death of her husband, is back in Australia after decades in Europe, and is discovering that while financial security eliminates worry, it doesn’t guarantee a fulfilling life. Fran, long divorced, is a struggling freelance food writer, battling with her diet, her bank balance, and her relationship with her adult children. And Sylvia, marooned in a long and passionless marriage to an ambitious Anglican minister, is facing a crisis that will crack her world wide open.
Together again, sharing their past lives, secrets, aspirations and deepest fears, Bonnie, Fran and Sylvia embark on a creative venture that will challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves – and give them more second chances than they ever could have imagined.
Gang of Four
She had a husband, children and grandchildren who loved her, a beautiful home, enough money. What sort of person was she to feel so overwhelmed with gloom and resentment on Christmas morning?
They have been close friends for almost two decades, supporting each other through personal and professional crises–parents dying, children leaving home, house moves, job changes, political activism, diets and really bad haircuts.
Now the ‘gang of four’, Isabel, Sally, Robin and Grace, are all fifty-something, successful ... and restless.
It is Isabel who makes the first move, taking a year away from her family to follow in her mother’s footsteps across Europe. Soon Sally is on her way to San Francisco, to come face to face with a guilty secret. Robin, in the wake of a clandestine relationship, heads for isolation in the country. And Grace? Well, Grace would never go away for an entire year, but, lonely in the others’ absence, she thinks she might take a short holiday in England. Once there, she bumps into someone she hardly knows–herself.
Gang of Four is a story of four very different journeys and a celebration of women in the prime of life.
NON-FICTION FROM LIZ BYRSKI
Getting On: Some Thoughts on Women and Ageing
Published as an ebook by Momentum Books
Why are we so obsessed with staying young?
In a culture that advocates the pursuit of endless youth and physical beauty how can we embrace the reality, the pleasures and the rewards of getting on? And what does the ‘fight against ageing’ mean when all women must eventually face the double-standard of ageism and sexism?
Once past fifty, older women begin to sense that they have become invisible. From the visual displays in the mall to the pages of magazines and the television screens at the heart of our homes, young women with perfect skin, bouncy, enhanced breasts, pouting lips, long straight hair and perfect teeth gaze down on us.
The ageing population is traditionally viewed as a problem; a drain on financial resources, health, housing and community services and a burden on younger generations. But living longer and living well are the triumphs of a civilised society. It is also the future that all generations want for themselves.
Can we change the conversation on ageing? Getting old is tough, but it’s also an opportunity to celebrate how far we have come and to shape a different future. In this essay, Liz Byrski examines the adventure of growing old in the twenty-first century: the new possibilities, the joy and the sorrow of solitude, the reality of grief and loss and the satisfaction of having travelled so far.
First published 2016 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Liz Byrsk
i 2016
The moral right of the author 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.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781925480030
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group
Cover design: Nada Backovic
Cover images: Design Pics Inc / Alamy Stock Photo; motorolka/Shutterstock; mamanamsai/Shutterstock
The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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