Things She Would Have Said Herself

Meet Leslie Bird, the irascible matriarch of a big bonkers family, coming of age and to the boil, as the secrets and slights that have shaped her and her hapless husband's lives impact their children in the most profound and complex ways. In other words, everyone's story. Sort of. Because this is a story, and family, like none you've ever read before.

Things She Would Have Said Herself is a darkly funny, deeply moving novel about the lengths and breadths one woman will go to ignore her own and others' pain and what happens when she's confronted by it one sweltering Christmas day.

'Completely original and bursting with love in all its messy, complicated forms. I loved this book.' FAVEL PARRETT

'Never have ordinary suburban lives felt so rambunctious, exhilarating or hilarious.' CATE KENNEDY

Catherine Therese is an award-winning writer, designer and educator whose lifelong passion for articulating the interior lives of people and places has inspired a diverse career in Europe and Australia, where she has lived, worked and published widely across the arts. Her memoir, The Weight of Silence , was a The Age and Sydney Morning Herald Book of the Year, a Varuna Fellowship recipient and finalist in the National Biography and ABIA awards. Her novel, Things She Would Have Said Herself , is a keening portrait of a world and a woman, Leslie Bird, coming of age and to the boil, as the family she loves and loathes implodes. It will be published in April 2023.

For those who loved Olive Kitteridge and Boy Swallows Universe comes a darkly funny, deeply moving novel told with breathtaking originality and dazzling talent. Leslie Bird loves being a wife and mother but loathes her husband and children. The only person she ever loved was born dead. Meet Leslie Bird, the irascible matriarch of a big bonkers family, coming of age and to the boil, as the secrets and slights that have shaped her and her hapless husband's lives impact their children in the most profound and complex ways. In other words, everyone's story. Sort of . Because this is a story, and family, like none you've ever read before. Things She Would Have Said Herself is a darkly funny, deeply moving novel about the lengths and breadths one woman will go to ignore her own and others' pain and what happens when she's confronted by it one sweltering Christmas day. A story of motherhood, marriage, madness, unspeakable loss and the heartbreaking messy love that holds a family together. Honest, revealing, resonant and startlingly original, if you loved Olive Kitteridge and Boy Swallows Universe , you will love this book!

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