About the book:
When her husband of nearly thirty years doesn’t answer his phone, Ailsa Piper knows something is wrong. She calls their neighbour to ask him to check. Minutes later, he rings back. ‘Oh, Ailsa. I’m so sorry,’ he says. Five words to change a life…
Wanting to flee her shattered world in Melbourne, Ailsa migrates north. She rejects all advice, trusting a Sydney real estate agent to find her a nest – and he does, in a sunlight-filled haven. Soon, the harbour works its way into her days. She learns to swim. She walks, up to the lighthouse and along sandstone cliffs, meeting the locals: winter swimmers, shoreline philosophers, and others, like her, hiding sorrow in plain sight.
But we never leave our pasts behind. Ailsa is drawn back to the south, and even farther back, to the aqua waters of the west. Home, it would seem, is not just one place …
For Life is a testament to the healing power of the natural world, a celebration of renewal and wonder, and an unflinching look at grief. It calls us to bear witness to death, and perhaps even embrace it as part of life’s raucous cacophony. Above all, For Life is a beacon of hope.
About the author:
Ailsa Piper has worked with words her whole life – as a writer, director, actor, teacher, speaker, audiobook narrator and broadcaster.
As a writer, she works across many mediums. Highlights include being named co-winner of the Patrick White Playwright’s Award for her script Small Mercies in 2001; and publishing her first book Sinning Across Spain in 2012. She then co-authored, with Tony Doherty, a book of correspondence called The Attachment: Letters From A Most Unlikely Friendship, which was published in 2017. Ailsa also co-adapted an acclaimed version of The Duchess of Malfi.
Ailsa has judged the NSW and Victorian Premier's Literary Awards on six occasions. She is an accomplished moderator of conversations and panels, and writes journalism and opinion pieces for newspapers and magazines. She also writes and performs her Wordwalks – monologues celebrating poetry, walking and landscape, which she performs in all weathers, as you’d expect!
