Eliza Henry Jones is a freelance writer and novelist based on a little farm in the Yarra Valley in Victoria. She is the author of the novels In the Quiet (2015) and Ache (2017) and the young adult novels P is for Pearl (2018) and How to Grow a Family Tree (2020). Eliza’s novels have been listed for multiple awards and she is currently a PhD candidate in creative writing at Deakin University.
Eliza’s here today to talk about how her own reflections on motherhood and family inspired her latest YA novel. Read on …
Eliza Henry Jones
I was pregnant when I wrote How to Grow a Family Tree. Being pregnant (for me, anyway) was a time in my life when I was particularly preoccupied with families. I was preoccupied with the forms they take, with what makes a good enough parent and how this baby would grow and turn to look back on his childhood. There is dreaming and hoping and fear, and so much of it came back to the sort of family I could give my son.
What is a family? What makes a family? What happens to families when things go wrong?
So, I started writing a story about families. It’s what I always do, when I’m consumed by something that I don’t quite understand. I write. And write. And write. As I wrote, I thought about love. I thought about laughter and memory and tears and boredom and uncertainty. I thought of the taste of chicken soup and the first picture book I ever read for myself. For me, blood is only a small part of what binds a family together and yet I thought about blood. I thought about what it means to be linked to others in this way.
I thought about adoption. My grandmother was forced to give my father up for adoption when she had him as a teenager. Pregnant with my first child, I wondered at this. Tried to imagine myself into her shoes (and failed).
And I wrote about Stella. Seventeen-year-old Stella, who is adopted. Self-help book-devouring Stella who wants, more than anything, to solve all the problems being experienced by the people that she loves–her family, friends and community.
There are shifting dynamics and rituals that develop over the years; the things that are universally known but never openly spoken about. This is particularly true for families experiencing hardship. Stella’s family in How to Grow a Family Tree is faced with issues relating to gambling, assault, adoption, domestic violence, childhood trauma and homelessness. I wanted to explore the ways that families can love each other, support each other and the ways that they can fracture, anyway.
Families are messy. Families break down. There is divorce and death and illness and estrangement. There are betrayals. The people we love the most disappoint us (and we disappoint them). Families are always changing. Growing and shrinking; jagged edges and mended tears. In this way, families breathe. Part of a family, we form a piece of a living thing that is terrible and wonderful. That’s what I wanted to explore when I created the flawed, loving, fiery and unconventional family in How to Grow a Family Tree.
—How to Grow a Family Tree (HarperCollins Australia) is out on the 23rd of March, and is available for pre-order here.
Find out more about Eliza Henry Jones here.
How to Grow a Family Tree
Stella may only be seventeen, but having read every self-help book she can find means she knows a thing or two about helping people. She sure wasn't expecting to be the one in need of help, though.
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