My Father's Suitcase

A gripping tale of resilience and survival that offers hope to others who have experienced family violence and suffered at the hands of a sibling.
A deeply personal and heartbreaking memoir that explores the troubled relationship between Mary Garden and her younger sister Anna, who died in 2023 after a short illness.
Mary unpacks her life of growing up in the Bay of Plenty in the 1950s and '60s, before making Australia home. She reveals complex layers of intergenerational trauma, including the baggage of her eccentric, deeply flawed father and the secret her mother kept from all of them, revealed only after her death. Mary deals movingly with her sister's long battle with mental illness and how she once saved Anna's life.
As she unravels these narratives, Mary touches on the guilt and shame familiar to anyone who has had to deal with secrets, violence and 'madness' in their family. She also shines a light on sibling abuse, the most common form of abuse in the context of family violence - occurring up to five times as frequently as spousal or parental child abuse - although it is often dismissed as 'sibling rivalry'. This form of abuse causes far-reaching, long-lasting harm and trauma.

Mary Garden is an author and journalist, with a PhD in Journalism (USC). Her work has appeared in many publications, including the Australian Financial Review, The Weekend Australian, The Guardian, Meanjin, The Humanist, New Zealand Geographic, Newtown Review of Books, Newsroom (NZ), Crime Magazine and Northern Times (Scotland), as well as scores of aviation magazines.
Her memoir The Serpent Rising: A Journey of Spiritual Seduction, first published in 1988, recounts her years in India in the 1970s where she fell under the spell of several gurus who led so-called 'spiritual' groups that were in fact sex cults. It has had enduring appeal and won the High Country Indie Book Award 2021. Her biography Sundowner of the Skies: The Story of Oscar Garden, the Forgotten Aviator, a warts and all account of her father's extraordinary but troubled life, was short-listed for the NSW Premier's History Award 2020 for a work of international significance.
She is a keen cyclist and works in her family's bicycle business, KWT Imports. She writes when she can. www.marygarden.com.au