And then she comes into the world like she owns it – like she is, in fact, God and has conjured this up, this world waiting to take her. She pours herself into liquid, she follows the call, she finds the world and embeds herself into it, ecstatic. She splits into two, into four, into eight, into thirty-two. She knows these bodies, wrapped together in the water. She belongs to them.
She is weightless. She is floating. She is at the centre of the universe.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It took more than forty years to write this book. Forty years to understand my own sister’s death and how it shaped my life, and nearly two to write a fictional story about a family facing a tragedy in some ways like mine.
When I was twelve, my two-year-old sister wandered through an unsecured pool gate. She fell into our backyard pool and drowned.
That event has rippled through my life since 1976, affecting me in known and unknown ways. I wrote about it, aged twenty-eight, in my first attempt at a novel – a piece of thinly disguised autobiography that didn’t make it to the bookshelves.
It wasn’t until 2014 – as my late sister’s fortieth birthday approached – that Sixty Seconds leapt into my consciousness, sure of its time and demanding to be written. I finally had the maturity as a writer and a person to make a true creative response to my sister’s death.
On the day of her birthday, my father, one of my sisters and my brother gathered around that little headstone in the babies’ section of the cemetery where she’s buried. There was so much sorrow still with us, but incredible love too. We shared that moment, acknowledging the power of this loss in our lives, acknowledging grief and pain, and acknowledging that this had helped make us who we are.
In the midst of horrific events it’s so difficult to understand them, or make sense of them, or believe that you’ll ever experience happiness again. They feel so cruel and random and senseless. There’s a great deal of self-torturing about the seconds of inattention that lead to accidents. They can cause a lifetime of guilt.
I came to understand that this event had changed my life and my family’s lives – dramatically, tragically, powerfully. I also came to see some meaning and beauty in it.
This is a book about going through traumatic experiences and coming to learn they are part of life. It’s not my story, nor my family’s story. I’m not telling anyone how they should go through grief or that it’s good for them. From the perspective of forty years down the track, I’m writing a story in which three people – Finn, Bridget and Jarrah – take the first steps in making sense of tragedy in their lives.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A number of people helped me navigate the complex terrain of this novel.
Solicitor Adam van Kempen advised me about the legal aspects of my initial idea. Magistrate David Heilpern expanded on that advice, walked me through the background of a relevant case that was being heard at the time, and gave comments on the manuscript.
Shaunagh Cassidy and Warren Dick gave me a police perspective on attending a drowning. Katherine Plint, founder of Hannah’s Foundation (which supports families through drowning and near-drowning tragedies), was an eloquent source of information and experience.
Metalwork sculptor Daniel Clemmets set me straight about the mechanics of welding.
Even with such strong advice, I have probably made some mistakes – and they are mine alone.
Special thanks to my aunt Carol Birrell, who was a wise and encouraging companion through the writing of this book, including during our month as joint writers-in-residence of the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska.
My writers’ group provided ongoing advice and support – thanks to Sarah Armstrong, Hayley Katzen, Emma Ashmere and Amanda Webster. Author Carig Cormick gave detailed feedback and author Katherine Heyman also gave me valuable comments early in the manuscript.
My agent Jo Butler generously read the manuscript more than once and provided feedback.
I am grateful to the Australia Council for the Arts for supporting me with a new work grant to write this novel.
Thanks to all at HarperCollins for their enthusiasm and support – particularly Mary Rennie, Jaki Arthur, Alice Wood, Kate O’Donnell and Emma Dowden.
And, of course, thank you to my beloved partner Andi for her unfailing love and support through it all.
World change starts with educated children.
Jesse Blackadder is a writer-ambassador for Room to Read, an innovative global non-profit focused on literacy for young people. Room to Read has impacted the lives of more than 11.5 million children in low income countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia.
Many world problems can be addressed through one solution: education. Knowing how to read makes people safer, healthier and more self-sufficient. Yet nearly 800 million people are illiterate and two thirds of them are women and girls.
Room to Read focuses on deep, systemic transformation within schools in low-income countries during the two most critical time periods in a child’s schooling: early primary school for literacy acquisition, and secondary school for girls’ education.
In recent years Jesse has spoken about Room to Read’s programs in schools and at literary festivals, and she’s run fundraising events to support Room to Read’s World Change Challenge.
Find out more about this inspiring program at www.roomtoread.org.
Sixty Seconds
DISCUSSION GUIDE
•Did you find the subject of the novel challenging? Were you prepared to follow the Brennan family’s emotional journey, knowing where it could lead?
•Forgiveness is the main theme of this novel. Could you forgive someone for the death of a child in their care – even if it was by accident?
•This story is told by three different characters: Finn, Bridget, and Jarrah. Did you find this effective? Was there one voice you liked better than the others, or one that you liked least? Why?
•Bridget blames Finn for Toby’s accident. The law – society – also wants to find someone to blame. Is the urge to blame a universal one?
•Finn thinks at one point: Was that what Sandra had meant? That in taking the blame for Bridget, he’d given her the harder task – of having to forgive him? Is that what Sandra meant? Is forgiveness the harder task?
•Did you like the character of Bridget? Did you understand her withdrawal from Finn?
•It is a revelation for Bridget when Jarrah tells her he saw Finn go round the back – not through the gate – on the day Toby drowned. Do you think this made her forgiveness possible?
•Finn wants to sell their house; Bridget wants to transform it and the pool. Could you stay in the same house after such a tragedy?
•Jarrah is suddenly propelled from being bullied to being part of the in-crowd at school because of the tragedy. Does this ring true to you?
•Did you understand Jarrah’s fear about his love for Toby? Was he overthinking an entirely natural impulse?
•How easy is it for young people to come out as gay in 2017? Is Jarrah’s fear and uncertainty understandable?
•What do you think about the novel’s ending? What does it mean for you?
•Did reading the author’s note about her own family change anything about how you responded to the novel? Does it make a difference knowing the author has experienced something similar to the events of the story?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JESSE BLACKADDER is an award-winning novelist, freelance journalist and budding screenwriter. Her novel The Raven’s Heart won the Benjamin Franklin Award for historical fiction (USA), and her novel Chasing the Light earned her an Antarctic Arts Fellowship. She is also the author of three children’s books, Dexter the Courageous Koala, Paruku the Desert Brumby and Stay the Last Dog in Antarctica. This is her fourth adult novel and is inspired by an event in her own family’s life.
COPYRIGHT
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, it
s arts funding and advisory body.
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2017
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Jesse Blackadder 2017
The right of Jesse Blackadder to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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ISBN: 978 14607 5424 5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978 14607 0875 0 (ebook)
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Cover image by Lisa Spindler Photography Inc / Getty Images
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