writing, editing & publishing family history

 

 

Ghost child:  a memoir

Noeline Kyle's latest book out in early 2015

 

 

Noeline had to trawl through family histories, school records, newspaper reports, oral histories, museum data, and library and archival material to fill in some of the blank spaces left by a childhood lived so long ago; a childhood whose history was scattered, lost perhaps in the ghostly landscape scarcely able to be remembered at all. This childhood, her childhood, is partly a paean to the many myths, misunderstandings and misconceptions now clouding that past.  It is also a story of how the history of childhood, any childhood, cannot be any more than the sum of its many wavering, ghostly and almost unknowable events  Her childhood story begins as World War 11 looms and ends as she closes the school gate for the last time. Her father, an itinerant worker, is often out of work, is sometimes just away somewhere.  It is an uncertain, ever-shifting family environ and her mother is unhappy in its rough and wild spaces.   The family moves often, there is constant upheaval and no safe haven from the misery of it all. But on the farm of her Grandfather Billy Kyle the child finds a brief sanctuary from the insecurity of her parent’s unhappiness. And it is her young aunts with their generous hearts, the steady support of grandparents and friends who provide the tiny pieces of warmth, laughter and hope to leaven the bitterness and hurt of an unhappy family life.
Forthcoming 2015, more details soon.......
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/6609208