Sky Swimming: Reflections on Auto/biography, People and Place

by Sylvia Martin

'Late afternoon. An isolated lagoon, water glassy, teeming with birdlife—black swans, ducks, a pelican. Sunset begins to tint the sky. I point the camera at the water to catch the clouds reflected there just as a solitary duck swims into view. Everything in the photograph is familiar yet the effect is entirely strange. The duck is swimming across the sky...'

The reflections in Sky Swimming can be read as meditations on the enigmas of love, family, ageing, memory, home and belonging. At its heart is a mudbrick house built by two women on an ancient lava flow in the Warrumbungle Mountains, circling back to a childhood filled with music in Melbourne and an early career in the theatre. It fans out across the world to a family mystery in The Netherlands of the 1950s and a friendship in Montreal in the 1990s. Reflections on the process of writing feminist biography are included and the women from Martin’s biographies thread their way through the narrative alongside the people who have helped shape her life, often in unexpected directions.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Feminist biographer writing about women neglected in Australian literary and cultural history.

Reviews

[Denise Faithfull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sky Swimming is a beautifully written series of autobiographical sketches about people, places and relationships. Sylvia Martin also tucks in a lot of tips and observations about the art and craft of writing biography from a feminist perspective.

A terrific read!

Denise the Bookworm

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing about place, home and connections

[Alison]

A book that you can dip in and out of, by the author of numerous biographies on Australian women cultural workers reflecting,l this time on her own life. I liked the chapter on building their mud brick home in the bush. I like the way the subjects of the biographies are woven into this book but they do feel like synopses of a life’s work for a respectable collection. But what was I expecting I wonder. Why do we read memoirs anyway. Isolating the mudbrick chapter reflects one of my fantasies, but I wanted more reflection on memoir and auto/biography from a lifelong practitioner, on how they can be narrated and formed, on the choices made about voice and niceties and emotion. Where are the intensities of a life long lived in their rawness. Why choose to reflect on your life’s work. What does this contribute to how readers live their lives. I’m not sure but I think there are more ways of writing and reflecting on these. Next up is Mary Fallon’s memoir by the same publisher.