A Mouthful of Flies

I first met Sue Currie while working on ABC’s Unleashed site in 2008. She wrote about her beloved Collingwood and about her daughter who was working in overseas aid in Nepal. On meeting Sue a few times, I formed the view that she was a very principled woman.

Sue sent me a manuscript she was working on: a book about her experience in remote-area Aboriginal communities where she was, often, the sole healthcare provider. It was based on diaries she kept while in some of the most isolated communities in the world. I read the opening chapters and believed she had something worth publishing.

Publisher Barbara Lynch has worked with Sue and A Mouthful of Flies has now been released. It is an eye-opening read, and well-worth looking at.

It is on sale through our footyalmanac shop for $40, which includes postage, or you can contact Sue directly  [email protected]

 

Here is Sue’s note from the preface:

The writing of this story was technically fairly easy but emotionally fairly difficult. It was easy because it was my personal stream-of-consciousness diary to draw on for every event, every character, and every day of the entire six months I worked on this small, isolated, traditional community. It was difficult because it obliged me to revisit and relive what I found to be vivid experiences of fear, humiliation, anger and wistful regret.

The journal began as a record for future enjoyment – of memories, of people, of events, and reflections, but it soon became much more than that. During times of deprivation and hardship it became my companion, my friend, my albatross and at times my sole means of keeping a tenuous grip on reality…

 

A Mouthful of Flies cover Sue Currie

About John Harms

JTH is a writer, publisher, speaker, historian. He is publisher and contributing editor of The Footy Almanac and footyalmanac.com.au. He has written columns and features for numerous publications. His books include Confessions of a Thirteenth Man, Memoirs of a Mug Punter, Loose Men Everywhere, Play On, The Pearl: Steve Renouf's Story and Life As I Know It (with Michelle Payne). He appears (appeared?) on ABCTV's Offsiders. He can be contacted [email protected] He is married to The Handicapper and has three school-age kids - Theo, Anna, Evie. He might not be the worst putter in the world but he's in the worst four. His ambition was to lunch for Australia but it clashed with his other ambition - to shoot his age.

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