Sunny Garden

There's more to it than that, I told her, implying it was a generational thing, that she was of another age and could never understand. And doing that because I know she hates it. My mother who likes to be in touch with youth, needs to be in touch with youth and treats sick uni students, is blase about condoms and STDs and all the other uni issues. My mother who is happy to tell anyone that she plays touch football, but never mentions it's in a veterans' competition. My mother who, I suspect, secretly extends her definition of youth a year with each birthday and who yearns for her son, caught in the trap of his own youth, to be interesting (p. 34).

    My mother goes to Noosa for lunch with a friend, one of her uni friends who is also no longer married. They will take hours over the meal and wander up and down Hastings Street, window-shopping and stopping occasionally for coffee. My mother will be back with an armful of glamorous bags and a badly damaged credit card and she will deal with this by telling me how much Gina spent (p. 41).

Continue with the After January tour.

Excerpts from After January are © Nick Earls and are used with permission.

All virtual tour photos are © Liz Perkins and may not be reproduced without permission.

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Sunny Garden is designed, written and maintained by Liz Perkins, in cooperation with Nick Earls and Penguin Books. Any questions about Sunny Garden should be directed to Liz

All original contents are © Liz Perkins.