Flesh Wounds

A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family.

Richard Glover's favourite dinner party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?'. It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob, who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed-toy collector. There was his father, a distant alcoholic, who ran through a gamut of wives, yachts and failed dreams. And there was Richard himself, a confused teenager, vulnerable to strange men, trying to find a family he could belong to. As he eventually accepted, the only way to make sense of the present was to go back to the past - but beware of what you might find there. Truth can leave wounds - even if they are only flesh wounds.

Part poignant family memoir, part rollicking venture into a 1970s Australia, this is a book for anyone who's wondered if their family is the oddest one on the planet. The answer: 'No'. There is always something stranger out there.

Caroline Baum's review

This unexpectedly revealing and often heart twistingly poignant memoir has earned deserved acclaim and been compared with Clive James' classic, Unreliable Memoirs. It certainly casts fresh light on Glover's irrepressible human spirit and his ability to always bend towards the light even when the situation is dark, while explaining why he writes columns that celebrate the most ordinary aspects of family life - because he never had them.

Eccentric, bizarre, sometimes disturbing, often hilarious, this story of a young man whose mother was unable to love him but who lavished affection on a collection of stuffed toys is more than entertaining.

About the Author

Richard Glover is the author of twelve books, including George Clooney's Haircut - and Other Cries for Help - a collection of his comic pieces as featured on ABC radio's Thank God It's Friday. His weekly humour column has been published in the Sydney Morning Herald for over twenty years. He also presents the top-rating Drive show on ABC radio in Sydney.