Frank Moorhouse's COLD LIGHT

For anyone who is a fan of the heroine of this trilogy, Edith Campbell Berry, having the last book in this trilogy published is a tragedy. It’s the end. You know that feeling?

Edith was born into literary fame in 1993 with the publication of GRAND DAYS.

DARK PALACE was published in 2001 and won the Miles Franklin Award.

And now COLD LIGHT in 2011, almost 20 years after the trilogy began.

Anyone who has read any of the previous books will be entranced by the heroine of this trilogy, Edith Campbell Berry. And the history this trilogy spans.

She has been Frank Moorhouse’s obsession and other life for those 20 years. He has lived with her, travelled with her, breathed with her, aged with her, dressed her, created her foibles, her vanities, her affairs, her sexual appetite, her marriages, her lovers, her good and bad decisions, and her charm.

Edith is fictional (although she is so lifelike sometimes it’s hard to believe she isn’t sitting next to you) and leaves Australia in the 1920’s at the age of 26 to work in Geneva at the League of Nations. She is a particular kind of girl. And one of only a few women who may have done what she did.

And what a time she has – post WW1 Europe is a wild and exuberant place. Edith makes the most of it.

Life is very good until the prospect of WW2 looms – which is covered in DARK PALACE – and the gay European life ends. The United Nations is formed but Edith very disappointingly is not part of it.

In COLD LIGHT, Edith is growing older and returns to Australia with her rather interesting husband Dr Ambrose Westwood, who works for the British and likes wearing women’s clothes at home at night. Yes, women’s clothes.

They move to Canberra, which in 1950’s Australia is a little town in a paddock with big and high ideals. But not a good place to wear women’s clothes at night if you are a man.

Never one to sit on the sidelines, Edith forms her own power base, joins the Canberra Authority (the organisation creating Canberra), makes some disastrous romantic decisions, furnishes her tiny office beautifully (this is a particular bit of the book I like) and tries to fit in. She ends up working with Robert Menzies, which suits her perfectly although she is not a fan of his politics.

I’d like to finish with a bit of the email I wrote to Frank when I read the manuscript of COLD LIGHT:

‘You should know that I approached COLD LIGHT with some trepidation. Being such a fan of Edith’s has its downside. Would Edith still be the Edith I imagined? Would she age authentically?  Would the next part of her life do her justice?

And there she was, back with all her foibles, charm and insight, her adventures and mistakes. She is so Edith and I was so not disappointed.’

Margie Searle is the Managing Director of Random House Australia. COLD LIGHT, the conclusion to the Edith Campbell Berry trilogy by Frank Moorhouse is out now.