Catherine Simpson

When I had a Little Sister is a searingly honest and wryly heartbreaking memoir about a Lancashire farming family, whose love of their land came hand in hand with the resilience to live off it. It's a story of sisters and sacrifice, grief and reclamation, and of the need to speak the unspeakable.

The Story of a Farming Family Who Never Spoke

When I Had a Little Sister

Nominated in Scotland's National Book Awards In this searing, frank and funny memoir, Catherine Simpson describes what it's been like to live in her woman's body, and to reach the realisation that all that time she'd spent trying to change her body to conform - often to unattainable standards - could be seen from a completely different perspective. By the time she reached her fifties, Catherine Simpson and her body had gone through a lot together--from period pain and early menopause to shaming and harassment. But there had been success, joy, love, and laughter too: far more freedoms than her mother had, a fulfilling family life and career, and even the promise of further gains for her daughters. So when a cancer diagnosis upends her life, Catherine is forced to reflect on her body, then and now. From growing up on a farm where veterinarians were more common than doctors, and where illness was "a nuisance," she finds herself faced with the nuisance of a lifetime. One Body is the demystifying, relatable, often hilarious and sometimes hair-raising story of how Catherine navigates her treatment and takes stock of the emotions and reflections it provokes. And how she comes to appreciate the skin she is in--to be grateful for her body and all that it does and is.

One Body: a Retrospective

Shortlisted in Scotland’s National Book Awards By the time she reached her fifties, Catherine had experienced period pain, childbirth, and early menopause, alongside love and laughter, a career in journalism, and raising two daughters. Like many of her peers, along the way she'd dieted, jogged, sweated, tanned, permed, and plucked—always attempting to conform to prevailing standards of "acceptable womanhood." But when a medical crisis comes along, she can no longer pummel her body into submission and is forced to take stock. From growing up on a farm where veterinarians were more common than doctors, and where illness was “a nuisance,” she now faces the nuisance of a lifetime. One Body is the demystifying, relatable, often hilarious, and sometimes hair-raising story of how Catherine navigates her treatment and the emotions and reflections it provokes. And how she comes to drop the unattainable standards imposed on her body, and simply appreciate the skin she is in.

One Body

Alice's life is dictated by her autistic son, Sam, who refuses to leave their remote Lancashire farm. Her only time 'off' is two hours in Lancaster on a Tuesday afternoon - and even that doesn't always pan out to be the break she needs. Husband Duncan brings Larry, a rootless wanderer, to the farm to embark on a money making scheme they've dreamed up. Alice is hostile but Larry beguiles Sam with tales of travel in the outside world and, soon, Alice begins to fall for him, too. By turns blackly comic, heart-breaking and heart-warming, Truestory looks at what happens when sacrifice slithers towards martyrdom. By turns happy and sad, ultimately it is a tale of hope.

Truestory

'If you loved Tara Westover's Educated, get yourself a copy of When I Had a Little Sister as soon as humanly possible...beautifully under-stated...a startling, elegiac portrait of farming life in modern Britain.' Vogue 'Gripping and heart-wrenching' Mail on Sunday

"Alice's life is dictated by her autistic son, Sam, who refuses to leave their remote Lancashire farm. Her only time 'off' is two hours in Lancaster on a Tuesday afternoon - and even that doesn't always pan out to be the break she needs. Husband Duncan brings Larry, a rootless wanderer, to the farm to embark on a money making scheme they've dreamed up. Alice is hostile but Larry beguiles Sam with tales of travel in the outside world and, soon, Alice begins to fall for him, too. By turns blackly comic, heart-breaking and heart-warming, Truestory looks at what happens when sacrifice slithers towards martyrdom. By turns happy and sad, ultimately it is a tale of hope." (publisher).

When I had a Little Sister by Catherine Simpson is a searingly honest and heartbreaking account of growing up in a farming family, and of Catherine’s search for understanding into what led her younger sister to kill herself at 46. It’s a story of sisters and sacrifice, grief and reclamation, and of the need to speak the unspeakable.

When I Had a Little Sister: The Story of a Farming Family Who Never Spoke

Anthony Lambert

Renata Murawska

Diasporas of Australian Cinema is the first volume to focus exclusively on diasporic hybridity and cultural diversity in Australian filmmaking over the past century.Topics include post-war documentaries and migration, Asian-Australian subjectivity, cross-cultural romance, "wogsploitation" comedy, and post-ethnic cinema. This collection also provides a useful reference text for scholars of Australian film and cultural studies, with material on contemporary film-making and pre-World War II cinema. Containing previously unpublished articles by some the most recognised experts on Australian cinema, the book is a vital contribution to the burgeoning international interest in diasporic cinemas.

Catherine Simpson

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