The Marriage Trap
Victoria Purman
Don’t miss Victoira who will be in conversation with radio presenter Prue Bentley at the BMI on Monday 11 May at 6pm
From bestselling Australian author, comes the story of a mother and her two daughters, set in the tumultuous extraordinary decade of the 1960s. A time of great change; the effects of the pill, rebellion and new ideas on ordinary Australian women… as, alongside shorter skirts and the Beatles, they embrace freedom. The ideal Mother’s Day gift.
1960s Adelaide: The Langley family – Olive, Len and their two daughters, twenty-year-old Cathy and ten-year-old Evelyn – live a peaceful suburban life, although Grandma Langley turns up each Sunday lunch like a bad fairy to castigate them for their dubious morals.
Cathy, training to be a teacher, thinks women have it tough. No sex until marriage, then no work, child after child and the sacrifice of their desires to church, husband and family. Cathy is determined not to marry right away. Once married, it’s all over. A life no longer her own.
Young Evelyn wants to be a fairy princess … until she sees for herself the price women pay for such dreams.
When the new contraceptive pill arrives women can suddenly sense freedom. But powerful forces are aligned against women’s reproductive choice and a fight begins. A fight that takes on their own doctors, the might of the Catholic church, and the outdated morality of previous generations. For readers of Lessons in Chemistry.
Our library stands on Wadawurrung Country. Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute acknowledges the Wadawurrung People of the Kulin Nation as the first inhabitants and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we work, learn and create. Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land.
