Even today, Liz Byrski can hardly believe it. There she was in London in 1968, a very exciting place to be in a year of monumental change and upheaval, and what was she doing? “I was pregnant with my first child and I spent a lot of 1968 lying on a chaise longue, watching The Forsyte Saga [on TV] and eating chocolates,” she says, laughing. If you know Liz, who has called Perth home for several decades and whose novels are as popular in Europe as they are here, it’s hard to imagine her so blinkered, so self-absorbed. “Imagine living through history and not noticing it? says Liz. “I regret that. I guess, sometimes, what happens to you seems bigger than anything else. At that age, I was more interested in what was happening to me than what was happening in the wider world.” Read more about Liz in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly on page 269.
Can we escape the past or do our mistakes come back to haunt us anyway? These are some of the questions asked in this rich, satisfying novel, in which the lives of a naive young Australian and an English journalist intersect in London during a tumultuous 1968 and are never the same again.
HOT DEAL! Receive $5 off the marked price of this month's Great Read when you present your AWW coupon at any Dymocks store. See page 270 of the August issue of The AWW.
Bad Behaviour by Liz Byrski, Pan Macmillan, $32.99. Your Say: Have you read this book? Share your thoughts below...
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