Morning Tea with author Mary Garden

Meet author and journalist Mary Garden in conversation with Michael Burge at Glen Innes's indie bookshop The Makers Shed.

Mary has been touring the country with her latest memoir My Father's Suitcase and High Country Books is delighted to host her third visit to the New England region.

Ticket includes: Morning tea, coffee and cake, moderated author talk, audience Q&A session and a book signing.

My Father's Suitcase is a gripping tale of resilience and survival that offers hope to others who have experienced family violence and suffered at the hands of a sibling.

Mary unpacks her life of growing up in New Zealand in the 1950s and ’60s, before making Australia home. She reveals complex layers of intergenerational trauma, including the baggage of her eccentric, deeply flawed father and the secret her mother kept from all of them, revealed only after her death. Mary deals movingly with her sister’s long battle with mental illness and how she once saved Anna’s life.

As she unravels these narratives, Mary shines a light on sibling abuse, the most common form of abuse in the context of family violence - occurring up to five times as frequently as spousal or parental child abuse.