Public Life, Private Grief: A Memoir of Political Life and Loss

Description

Mary Delahunty is a celebrity journalist elected to Parliament, sparkling in the breathless publicity of an ALP 'Star recruit'. In under a year the party wins the election Jeff Kennett couldn't lose and she is thrust, with her startled new colleagues, into government. Dubbed a team 'on training wheels' the Bracks' government sets about restoring services to a Victoria brittle with anger. MD becomes Minister for Education and the Arts. The fairy dust fades, though, when her soul mate, husband and father of their two children is struck down with a rampant cancer. This is a meditation on how a public figure copes, or fails to cope, with private grief, during the long dying and the unending absence. It explores our society's deep disdain for death and sickness and how the gladiatorial dark arts of politics don't pause for anyone. Mary Delahunty is honest and entertaining about her mistakes, her political unravelling, her 'sacking' and the understanding of a new shape of life after 'the bear pit'. This is a compelling read as a charmed life comes spectacularly undone in public.

Mary Delahuntly served more than seven years as a Victorian Government Minister in senior portfolios including Minister for Education, Arts, Planning and Women's Affairs. Prior to entering Parliament, Mary had a prominent career in journalism as both a reporter, including stints as a foreign correspondent, and as presenter of ABC TV news and current affairs programmes. She gained the most prestigious award in Australian journalism, a Gold Walkley, for her international work on ABC TV Four Corners programme. Mary also hosted the ABC's national arts program, Sunday Afternoon.