Anne Brinsden is the debut author of Wearing Paper Dresses, a compelling family saga set deep in the heart of rural Victoria. As far back as Anne can remember she has loved stories. Mostly, she would read them. But if there were no stories to read, she would make up her own. She lives in the western suburbs of Melbourne now with a couple of nice humans, an unbalanced but mostly nice cat and a family of magpies. But she lived all of her childhood in the Mallee in northern Victoria before heading for the city and a career as a teacher.
Today, Anne is on the blog to answer a couple of our questions about Wearing Paper Dresses and her life as a reader. Read on!
Anne Brinsden
Tell us about your book, Wearing Paper Dresses!
AB: Wearing Paper Dresses is about two sisters – Marjorie and Ruby – growing up on a wheat and sheep farm in the semi-arid Mallee in northern Victoria. The girls are isolated on their farm with a beautiful and talented mother who struggles with mental illness, a grandfather who despises weak women, and their father who is striving to help a wife whose illness he can’t comprehend. It is about Marjorie and Ruby as they grapple with caring for their unwell mother who, even at the best of times, is at odds with the harsh Mallee environment. The book is about belonging, or as in the mother’s case, a sense of not belonging. And it is about the capacity of the human spirit to love and survive, even against the strangest of odds. While the book is fiction, the mother in the story and her struggles are loosely based on my own mother who did suffer from bouts of severe mental illness.
What was the inspiration behind this story?
AB: My work had me driving hundreds of kilometres every day. On the way home from work I would have complete silence in the car. But I discovered I was daydreaming. I would be making up stories in my head about the landscapes I was driving through and about how people interpret those landscapes – how someone can say they love a place and others will say they hate it. I found myself making up stories about how people cope and why they cope and what they will blame for their circumstances.
I think a lot about resilience. I grew up in the Mallee so I know how harsh it is. And I know that the people who survive in the Mallee and who love it are hardy. But I also know that people who persist against mental illness are tough in a strangely fragile way. And that those who support people with mental illness are durable and hard-wearing.
What is it about Australia in the ‘50s that really made you want to set your story then?
AB: I have been intrigued about persistent Australian attitudes towards mental illness. The attitudes of the 1950s through to very recent times towards mental illness: have been that it was particularly a women’s problem. With nearly all mental health problems being classified as a ‘nervous breakdown’. While men didn’t appear to have any sort of mental health issues at all.
I particularly set Wearing Paper Dresses in the 1950’s because I love 1950s fashion!!
If Wearing Paper Dresses had a theme song, what would it be?
AB: ‘Go Away From My Window’ sung by Linda Ronstadt. It is usually interpreted as being about love rejection but I think of it in this context as trying to get the terrors of mental illness to go away.
What do you hope readers will discover in this book?
AB: That there is sustaining beauty in love. That all of us are fragile and a bit broken but we can still try and the determination to keep loving and keep trying can be a beautiful and sustaining thing.
Wearing Paper Dresses is your debut novel – congratulations! How does it feel to be going through the publication process for the first time?
AB: It is so very hard to describe! It is exhilarating and humbling. It is wonderful, floating in the heavens stuff. It is terrifying! I am loving it.
Who do you most admire in the writing world?
AB: Emily Bronte: for disclosing all that extraordinary talent in the strangest and harshest of places – the Yorkshire moors.
What is your favourite book and why?
AB: Wuthering Heights. Because of the imbued mystery and magic of the natural setting and its impact on the plot. And the wonderfully, frustratingly flawed main characters. It is a book that stands outside of time.
What is your favourite literary quote?
AB: “Trouble with mice is you always kill ‘em,” – John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men.
And finally, what’s up next for you?
AB: I am busy writing my second novel. It is set in country Australia again. It is in Gippsland this time. My mother grew up in Gippsland near the Tara Bulga national park and I love it there. It is a novel about what seemingly ordinary people will do to stay safe.
Thanks Anne!
Wearing Paper Dresses
Discover the world of a small homestead perched on the sunburnt farmland of northern Victoria.
Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive. And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don't impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises...
Comments
April 25, 2020 at 9:43 am
Thank you Anne Brinsden for a beautiful book. I just loved it. It made me laugh & then it made me cry. Can’t wait for your next book. Regards Sandy
June 1, 2020 at 10:00 pm
Our book club loved this book, sad compelling, mental health in rural australia. Brilliantly written as a first novel. We are awaiting your next novel.
January 8, 2021 at 11:59 pm
I was drawn into all the layers of the book especially the impact of mental illness on a family. I loved the picture of the landscape, so Australian and extreme.
One of the best reads in years.
I can’t wait for Anne’s next book
September 1, 2021 at 5:15 pm
I have today finished this book. I love this book on so many levels:
It is in many ways MY life. Country town, genteel mother who married a ‘Farm boy,’ institutionalised many times.
A friend of mine who died last year loved to read, however she said she simply didn’t understand the concept of books that are so well written that one would re read a sentence just for the joy of savouring its beauty. I would have given her this book to illustrate that.
I have been listening to Nessun Dorma. Sublime.
September 1, 2022 at 5:13 pm
I have just finished this book and am still recovering from its impact. I am amazed by it. It should have a warning label ” Don’t read if you’re feeling depressed” . Extremely moving and beautifully written.
Thank you Anne Brinsden for sharing this wonderful book.