A Letter to our Son Peter Carey 1994

First Paragraph:

Before I have finished writing this, the story of how you were born, I will be forty-four years old and the events and feelings which make up the story will be at least eight months old.

You are lying in the next room in a cotton jump-suit.

You have five teeth.

You cannot walk.

You do not seem interested in crawling.

You are sound asleep.

I have put off writing this so long that, now the time is here, I do not want to write it. I cannot think. Laziness. Wooden shutters over the memory. Nothing comes, no pictures, no feelings, but the architecture of the hospital at Camperdown.

From the UQP hardback edition, 1994.

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Last modified: November 15, 2001.