Pan Macmillan

Rrp $49.99

This book is a surprise in many ways. Yes, it’s gutsy brave, defiant even. But it’s also touching, funny, surprising.  Grace Tame’s personality in all its toughness, braveness, fragility and humour jumps from each page.

The story of her abuse as a young girl by a schoolteacher and its subsequent damage is not the raison d’etre of this story, though that trauma and her fight to stand up for women, call out issues of sexual abuse, brought her to our attention as Australian of the Year, has given her a platform.

But she is an intriguing mix of the public face and personality, with a private story she tells well. 

I wondered at the title of the book, till I read about Jorge – a rough old diamond miner she meets in her time in Portugal aged 19. Jorge  has one front tooth, a chihuahua, the clothes on his back, and a clapped-out Peugeot stuffed with photograph albums documenting his life adventures. He had “nine lives, or thereabouts” wandering the world, including a stint mining diamonds in Brazil before wending his way back home.  

Jorge was asset poor but rich in things that really matter – “the simple pleasure of having nothing more than a wealth of vivid memories and real friends.” She reveals that “our power lies in how we respond to what  life throws at us.”   

Yes, the book does deal with her public persona and the issues and incidents that brought her to our attention, from the loud brave speaking out, to the sidelong look at the then PM that says so much more. But there’s lots more to tell of a life lived to the fullest.

She’s a good writer, unafraid to reveal her fragilities, how her autism manifests, her traumas and her triumphs. But her art (included in colour photographs) intrigued me as much as her writing. 

Her final words … “May these words bring you home” signals she’ll always be at home in a world of words. 

Grace is still so young. It will be interesting to follow her journey.

DM