By Melissa Meehan
For many of us, Melina Marchetta’s novel Looking for Alibrandi was the book of our generation.
Part of the Victorian school curriculum, it told a story of a young woman finding herself between different cultural identities all while doing VCE.
And Melina’s new book, The Place on the Dalhousie, also tells a story of finding yourself in the form of a house.
“It’s about a house – also about two women who both believe they are have a right to that house,” Melina said.
“One is upstairs and one lives downstairs, they don’t talk to each other. It’s about the community they build inside the house and outside it and how they learn to become something other than enemies.”
Melina says she loves putting characters in a confined space and seeing how they nut things out.
The characters, the daughter of a man who built the house and her step mother, learn to work with each other than against each other.
“I don’t know many people who don’t have messy families – so I like working with the idea of family, and that doesn’t have to be blood relatives either. It can be a combination of friends, past friends and people they let into their lives.”
For Melina, the writing process takes between 18 months and two years to pull together a novel – it’s not two years of solid writing.
And it’s the perfect profession for her – she can be present for her young daughter while still working.
“I’m a single mum,” Melina says.
“It’s like the novel – I work with my community and I’m very fortunate to be able to call on people including my family when I need help.
“I never try to be away for more than one night – and that will change when she gets older and is emotionally capable of dealing with it.”
Being able to work on her novel when her daughter is at school and edit the work once she is in bed makes a good balance for Melina.
“It’s not easy, I would never pretend it’s easy,” she said.
“There are days like today where I know I’m going interstate tomorrow and I’m wondering how it affects her.
“But it’s important for me to know that she is the most important person in my life – but I also have to think about myself, I’m entitled to have a profession where I do have to step outside of her little world.”
But the guilt she feels about travelling is balanced by her ability to be involved when her daughter was in kinder and even helping in the school library or canteen.
“The bonus is I can be flexible with my time and I can be there for her,” she said.
“But if I don’t do the work, I have to make sure with that lack of structure that I am getting work done.
“It’s a juggling act and we’re not struggling but I do fund the juggle is emotionally hard.”
