Sue McCauley says…
But For The Grace is that unfashionable thing, a novel with something to say. This highly readable work of fiction is, at the same time, an exploration of our society’s response to battered women. It’s a complex, compassionate political and personal story that, in some way, affects us all. It deserves to be widely read and deeply pondered.
A group of women living in violent relationships meets each week in a community house. Their advocates, feisty, radical feminists, Leah Gunn and her partner Kelly, have developed a liberating practice, from their own lived experience, which helps women to evaluate their lives and make decisions.
However, the Department of Social Welfare in the nineties, is reluctant to fund workers without academic qualifications. Kelly’s reaction to this new perspective is to hightail it to university to study social work but Leah is staunch, She knows that what she does for women works. Can they overcome the tensions this brings to their relationship?
Anna Connaught, DSW Community Social Worker, has been instructed to find
a way to audit Leah’s practice and by chance meets Dr Mandy Brook,
with whom she went to university, who is writing a book on Best Practice
For Working With Battered Women.
Journal entries tell the life stories of the women in the group and reveal the complexity of their lives. A
chance meeting with Chris, the coordinator of Mens’ Groups,
complicates Mandy’s life when she mistakes him for someone from her
past.
A story told in a group session acts as a catalyst for
transformation and tragedy. Thus unfolds tales of abuse, betrayals,
violence and compassion that make compelling reading.
BIO:
Gaye Sutton was born and lived in Wellington and the Hutt Valley until 1994 when, after many years as a counselor/social worker/advocate for abused women, she moved to the small farm she and her husband own in the Wairarapa. There, she works from a small studio, as a storyteller, counselor, celebrant, and writer.
Gaye has created many stories to perform on the stage, here and overseas, one of her short stories has been published in Takahe, others online.
She never thought about writing a novel, until, as part of her work in the nineties, she met a young woman who had that ambition. Trapped in an abusive relationship she yearned to write a novel that would tell the stories of women who are abused and how easy it is to become entangled with someone violent and controlling and how hard to escape. Her old school suitcase, hidden under her bed was a repository for her notes.
Sadly, that young woman took her own life after a crisis in her relationship and at her funeral Gaye made a silent promise to write the novel for her. She is 71 years old and this is her first novel.
