Ghost Wife

December 13, 2012

In this moving memoir Australian writer Michelle Dicinoski charts her decision to marry her girlfriend Heather, and the complications that arise due to the fact that their union isn’t recognised in Australia or in Heather’s birth country of America. The couple decides to marry in Canada, where same-sex marriage is legal. This book is part road trip, part love story and family history, and the author has a terrific eye for detail. Her descriptions of the landscape in America, Canada and her hometown of Rockhampton and later Brisbane are deftly drawn, including pitch-perfect atmosphere. Dicinoski paints a vivid picture of growing up in Rockhampton and how she coped with being an outsider, as she questions herself and her sexuality as well as the pressure to marry, settle down and live out the hopes of her parents. The strength of this memoir is the author’s family relationships, both historical and present day. Particularly moving is the growing acceptance of Dicinoski’s choices by her mother and father. The narrative weaves often startling stories about the author’s family—including institutionalised care and abuse, secret family members and disappearances—with vignettes about women in history who defied the law and operated outside of society’s norms. This is a fresh Australian voice and a welcome addition to the memoir genre.

Sarina Gale is a freelance writer and bookseller at the Sun Bookshop in Yarraville