A true story of secrets, motherhood and hope

Mary-Rose MacColl has written one other non-fiction book as well as three fiction novels. Her recognition and awards as a successful writer are impressive. I include this as a prelude to my review as my expectations of this, her second non-fiction and her autobiography, For a Girl, was exceedingly elevated. It surpassed any expectation on my part.

This extraordinary true story of secrets carried from her teenage years will astound and keep the reader riveted and intrigued.  

The first chapter sets the scene of Mary-Rose in a normal, happy childhood with loving parents. However, her father, she recognises, did not like children.

However, I love her perspective of the world and refreshing insight revealed in the beginning.  For an example of this, in reference to her father, she writes, “like all of us he was a product of his circumstances.”

Yes, she was an energetic and lively child who was asked to leave one Catholic School but was accepted by another where she became somewhat of a loner. “Growing up on comics”, gave her a “head full of Super heroes” and beautiful trusting optimism. However, her teenage vulnerability, not that she sees herself in that way, leads her to a more than an ordinary friendship with her female teacher and her teacher’s husband. Abuse and sexual violence find Mary-Rose in Melbourne where baby Ruth is born.

The author, while remaining objective, reveals, with an amazing degree of honesty, her feelings and motivation to give baby Ruth away as an unwanted child. This is at a time when it had become more acceptable for unwed mothers to keep their babies. She has no idea that this, and a further sexual encounter, will haunt and debilitate her emotionally into her thirties and forties.

Her marriage to David and the birth of Otis are catalysts in her story as are her two psychologists. How vulnerable we can be to these professionals and how fortunate or unfortunate we can be in their guidance! Memories are sharply triggered and after keeping her mind eroding secrets and shame for twenty years she finally begins to break free of the memories of sexual violence and abuse at the hands of, mostly, her teacher’s husband.

She says of herself, “Even while writing the book, although I am a writer by profession, I never thought I was telling. I never thought of an audience, readers. I was writing for me and for one or two people close to me”. She adds further, “You should not read this book if you think some things are better left unsaid for the book will not agree with you. This book has frightened some people. It has made some people angry. One of my dearest friends cannot even open the cover”. (quote from Mary-Rose through Allen and Unwin).

I am one of those people who firmly believe that some things are better left unsaid. I am so appreciative that I have read this account and only time will reveal that, in the telling, those around her, (mainly Ruth) will be thankful for the raw truth that is revealed.

The eloquence of the authors’ language add to this distinctive read and I am convinced that I must also follow the reading of For a Girl with at least one of her applauded fictional books; The Birth Wars (2009), In Falling Snow (2012), and/or Swimming Home (voted 2016 Courier Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award).  

For a Girl by Mary-Rose MacColl is available now from Dymocks. Click here to learn more.