Thomas Keneally: ‘If my wife didn’t sort me out, I wouldn’t be the bloke I am now’

Thomas Keneally discusses his upbringing, career and the women who have influenced him.

Occupation: Writer
Age: 86
Relationship status: Married
Best known for: His novel Schindler’s Ark

Thomas Keneally: “When I left prior to ordination, I was a bit of a lost soul, and so I started writing.”Credit: James Brickwood

My maternal grandmother, Hilda, was a quiet woman who married into a rowdy Irish clan. Her husband, Mick, was a train driver.

They lost a child together – their little girl was run over by an automobile. It had a big impact on them, and gave Hilda an air of trauma about her. But what I saw between my grandparents was intense love. The sort that’s supposed to come with marriage, but isn’t always present.

My parents, Edmund and Elsie, met in Kempsey, NSW, where my paternal grandfather, Tim, had a general store. Attitudes towards women back then were still in the 19th century. Among poorer rural people, as a wedding present, it was common for the bride’s parents to have her teeth removed, so her husband never faced dental bills. It was very Old Testament.

My mother was a huge influence on me, especially as my lieutenant father was away for almost three years during World War II. She had enormous respect for the written word, and made me a reader. If I voiced that Homebush, where we lived, was boring, she’d say, “A child with a book is never bored.”

My mother didn’t want me to enter the seminary at 17, but I was very influenced by the Catholic Church. It was in the days when priests were seen as social leaders. Yet I was shocked at the severity of the training. A lot of blokes had nervous breakdowns.

Many honest gay men were drummed out, but for me that was not the test. Rather, heterosexuality was, as I was very sexually immature. When I left prior to ordination, I was a bit of a lost soul, and so I started writing.

My mother was bowled over when I won the 1982 Man Booker Prize for Schindler’s Ark, but not so surprised. Her attitude was, “Didn’t I tell you you’d do okay if you studied?”

She became a war widow when my father died at 92. She was given taxi vouchers that would take her to see specialists, but when she died at 94, none had been used. Her creed was that you didn’t use your privileges too much, because there were people worse off who needed them.

I was 29 when I met my wife Judith, a nurse. She struck me as beautiful and kind. Judy was caring for my mother, who’d had a “woman’s operation”. My mother insisted Judy read my first published novel, which she did.

We’ve been married for 56 years. After that time you know what brought you together and what’s driven you apart. We’ve had the occasional difficulty, but if Judy didn’t sort me out, I wouldn’t be the bloke I am now. I’ve gone from an emotional age of about three, she reckons, to about 7½.

I’ve found in old age that she’s a great editor. My daughter, Meg, who’s 55 and also a novelist, never publishes anything without running it by Judy first.

By having a wife and two daughters, I’ve become interested in the situations regarding women. In my new book, A Bloody Good Rant, I bring awareness to the huge silences women have kept.

In my novel The Daughters of Mars I wrote about the Australian women who joined the nursing service in 1914. These women’s capacity to deal with human damage without suffering PTSD interests me a great deal.

It’s been said that one-third of women are warriors. Like Joan of Arc. And this little girl Greta Thunberg, who looks like she’s been generated on a cloud especially to push scary old men’s buttons. It’s a very interesting proposition as to where women fit into the canon of human courage. I’ve written a lot about this since 1983, and the benign education that living with Judy has given me is a part of that.

A Bloody Good Rant (Allen & Unwin) by Thomas Keneally is out now.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale October 24. To read more from Sunday Life, visit The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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