Debra Oswald, for those who don’t know, is an Australian author of novels, plays and TV dramas, the most notable being the very popular Offspring series.
She has written several books, but this is the second one I have read, and I enjoyed it immensely.
Betty, the book’s protagonist, is about to celebrate her 100th birthday and narrates the story of her life. She is a fabulously feisty, potty-mouthed, adventurous dame and I really liked her.
Legend has it that her life began in the family kitchen, “whooshing out at speed and so slick with waxy vernix, that I shot off the edge of the table into the precarious air”, on 12 April 1928. There are 10 children in the family and Betty is number seven, narrowly escaping brain damage as she is caught by her older brother, Michael, with whom she is very close.
The novel follows Betty’s life and is a wonderful synopsis of the past 100 years, and the incredible things that have occurred during this time, as well as the amazing changes and inventions that anyone of significant age has seen and/or experienced.
Born in London into an impoverished family with an alcoholic father, she suffers the humiliations of poverty stoically and doesn’t hold any ill feeling towards her mother for the gender injustice inflicted on the females of the species.
Shortly after giving birth to her tenth child, Betty’s mother dies and four years later WWII begins. Betty is evacuated north to safety – a time that she remembers with great affection – where she is nurtured by a couple whose own children have grown up and left home. There is a lot of sweet and sour in this novel and it captures many major events and movements, particularly the feminist movement, which a feisty dame like Betty was inevitably going to discover and embrace.
There is a wonderful cast of characters, unrequited love, terrible marriages and fabulous lifelong friendships – many of them started on the SS Asturias when Betty travels to Australia on the ‘Ten Pound Pom’ scheme.
“Honey, you bellyache and cry all you need. There’s no hierarchy of suffering. One variety of misfortune doesn’t invalidate another.”
― Debra Oswald, One Hundred Years of Betty
Goodreads rating: 4.2 stars
Publisher: Allen & Unwin