Jan's son Christopher Brown introduced the author and the special guests, joking that his family has lived through the trials and tribulations of the novel's protagonists for the last twenty years. Talk-back radio host, regular television guest, controversial panellist on Channel Ten/Foxtel's Beauty & the Beast, and well seasoned writer - Jan perhaps most notably caused quite a scandal when she admitted on 60 Minutes seducing her cabinet minister husband on his parliamentary desk in Canberra.
Susie Elelman shared the story of her father who was a Holocaust survivor, as well as her brother who was conscripted into the Vietnam War, escaping by the skin of his teeth due to flat feet, and subsequently how close to her heart the story of Goodbye Lullaby is.
Paul Howes described his experience as being forcibly adopted and his political drive to rectify the related past wrongs throughout the British Commonwealth. He praised Jan and her novel for tackling the issue of state-sanctioned, widespread and largely undisclosed forceful adoptions. Paul also described with tremendous heartfelt emotion his first meeting with his birth mother - and in Shearer's Bookshop would you believe!
Goodbye Lullaby follows Miki, a young unmarried mother who is forced to give up her child in the 1950s. Two decades later she is a dangerous anti-war activist on the run. She is forced to find her son Dominic as he is conscripted to fight in Vietnam during the 1970s. Miki has his get out jail free card, but has to take on everyone in the process. Goodbye Lullaby is heartbreaking, yet warmly humorous. Murray writes with a fresh and captivating voice, her descriptions as tactile and crisp as a dewy grass knoll.
Jan gracefully thanked her friends and family for their support and jokingly reminisced with Susie Elelman about their shared time hosting Beauty and the Beast. A special thanks was reserved for Paul Howes' intimate candour. The NSW Government are planning on issuing a formal apology on the 20th September for state-sanctioned forcible adoptions.
Signed copies of Goodbye Lullaby are available at Shearer's while stocks last.
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