Thanks Chloe for your wonderful final posts on the Summer Read blog.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Chloe will be appearing at:

Heaths Road Library, Cnr Heaths Street and Derrimut Road Hoppers Crossing on Tuesday 24 February 2009, 7.00 – 9.00 pm
For more information phone Heaths Road Library 9748 9333 or book online at http://summerread31.eventbrite.com
Northcote Library, 32-38 Separation Street Northcote on Thursday 26 February 2009, 6.30 – 7.30 pm
For more information phone Northcote Library1300 655 355 or book online at http://summerread33.eventbrite.com

Vote for Tall Man or SMS TALL to 13 46 88

Chloe Hooper is the final Summer Read author blogging from 25 – 28 February.

Chloe Hooper won a Walkley Award for her writing on the inquest into the death of Cameron Doomadgee, published in The Monthly and internationally. Her first novel A Child’s Book of True Crime was critically acclaimed around the world.

Her book Tall Man is one of the books on the Summer Read shortlist.

Tall Man tells the story of an Aboriginal man who dies in a watch-house cell, forty minutes after being arrested for swearing at a policeman. The coroner’s report states he died from a fall, sparking community outrage and the locals burning down the police station. The Tall Man tells the true story that epitomised Aboriginal Australia’s haunting racial plight.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Chloe will be appearing at:

Heaths Road Library, Cnr Heaths Street and Derrimut Road Hoppers Crossing on Tuesday 24 February 2009, 7.00 – 9.00 pm
For more information phone Heaths Road Library 9748 9333 or book online at http://summerread31.eventbrite.com

Northcote Library, 32-38 Separation Street Northcote on Thursday 26 February 2009, 6.30 – 7.30 pm
For more information phone Northcote Library1300 655 355 or book online at http://summerread33.eventbrite.com

What Chloe says about summer reading

“I remember lying on the beach in the summer holidays reading my school books for English; sand becoming ingrained in the books’ spines; trying to shade the pages so the white glare didn’t scald my eyes. Hours went by like this. I wouldn’t move until the books themselves seemed sunburnt. That’s how I first read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar: her semi-autobiographical account of a young American girl’s psychiatric breakdown. I was riveted—and too young to realise there were probably people breaking down all over the beach….Of course, what we read becomes ingrained in us. And now whenever I’m swimming in the sea, my pulse-thumping, I always think of Plath’s brilliant line: I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”

Merry Christmas to all the writers, readers and drifters who come across this site.

This blog is from Blackheath - in the Blue Mountains - about a 1000 km from Melbourne.

I reckon the best blogs are those where not too much care is taken; where mistakes might be made and the writer just shoots off whatever comes first into his or her mind. I find that hard to do but when I come across someone who has done that, I know I enjoy it all the more.

Some years ago I chanced upon a short article on the life of Tom Wills. Sadly, Tom Wills took his own life - he stabbed himself in the heart in the autumn of 1880. It was my wife who suggested that we trek to the Mitchell Library in Sydney to find his obituary. The obituary noted that Tom Wills had been admitted to the Royal Melbourne Hospital the day before his death. The Royal Melbourne Hospital also happens to be my old medical school.

I was curious about Tom Wills but, thought, I had more responsible things to do - like continuing to work as a doctor. That curiosity never did leave me, and so, self-consciously, I rang the Royal Melbourne Hospital to ask if they had doctors’ notes from 1880. They did, in a large room at the back of the hospital, but no one, it was explained, had ever really wanted to look at them.

I flew to Melbourne - the pretext was a medical conference where I gave a paper - and then immediately caught a tram along Royal Parade to the hospital. There, a bemused archivist showed me a room filled with unopened cardboard boxes. In each box were about a dozen leatherbound medical records from the 1800s. There was no order to the notes. I sat down for about 5-6 hours until I came across the notes that recorded the final hours of the life of Tom Wills. I could hardly believe what I saw. Tom Wills, it turned out, was an alcoholic and was in the DTs when he took his life. In the midst of DTs and tormented by paranoid delusions he absconded from hospital on the evening of 1 May 1880. The next day he was dead.

Bloody Hell! … was my first reaction. My second was to care for this archive.

I shot outside the room and kissed the archivist, asking her to keep the notes safe. I then ran on to Royal Parade and raced to my favourite pub from my days as a medical student - Naughton’s Hotel. The first pot of beer disappeared in a moment, the second lingered. It was just as I finished that second beer, looking at the falling leaves from the elms, with the noise of the trams intruding upon the most fantastic phase of sweet intoxication, that I thought I might try to find out more about this Tom Wills.

That’s how I started the book.