Fractured in Aussie Readers

Dec 06, 2012 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2013-release, thriller, aussie-authors, library-bookclub-reads, borrowed-from-library, suspense

Anna and Tony were thrilled by the birth of their beautiful baby boy, whom they named Jack. He was adorable, and Anna couldn’t wait to get home from hospital and begin being the mother she had always wanted to be. But Jack wouldn’t settle, he seemed to be always hungry, and so the routine began with Anna feeding him every two hours or so, not sleeping when Jack slept, and determined to do everything on her own. She wanted to breastfeed, she was determined to be a GOOD mother, and refused the sug Anna and Tony were thrilled by the birth of their beautiful baby boy, whom they named Jack. He was adorable, and Anna couldn’t wait to get home from hospital and begin being the mother she had always wanted to be. But Jack wouldn’t settle, he seemed to be always hungry, and so the routine began with Anna feeding him every two hours or so, not sleeping when Jack slept, and determined to do everything on her own. She wanted to breastfeed, she was determined to be a GOOD mother, and refused the suggestion she top Jack up with formula. She refused help from Tony’s mother, Ursula, and her own Mum, Wendy, who lived in Western Australia, was told by Anna to come over to Sydney when Jack was bigger, so she could enjoy and interact with him…

Tony went back to work immediately Anna and Jack came home from hospital, therefore he was gone from early morning till early evening, every week day, and missed a lot of Anna’s problems. Even when he wanted to help, she wouldn’t let him, plus when he asked her if she was alright, she always said yes. In retrospect of course, Tony realized she WASN’T alright, but the fragile walls had begun to crumble, and suddenly, on the day Tony left early for a meeting after organising his mother to come over to help Anna with Jack, everything came crashing down, and Tony’s life, and the lives of everyone around him were changed forever.

The suddenness of life’s change shocked Tony…Anna was in bed sleeping, he had fed Jack and left him also sleeping, and gone to work. Now, only a matter of half an hour later, Anna and Jack were missing. His Mum and Dad Jim, along with Tony himself, began a search, which became more and more desperate…no-one had seen her; Emily, Anna’s best friend, hadn’t spoken to her in a week, Wendy hadn’t spoken on the phone to Anna in a couple of days….where could she be? Where was Jack? Tony rang the police around mid-day, and the search intensified…..

The emotion in this book is intense…many times I was swallowing back tears. The empathy for Anna and her desperation with Jack, her determination to do everything herself when I KNEW she should be asking for and accepting help. As a first time mother, Anna only knew what she had read in books, and they all told her she SHOULD do this, and she SHOULDN’T do that! Those of us with experience ourselves, know that every child is different, and every mother (and father)’s coping mechanism is different.

Dawn Barker has done a brilliant job with this novel, with the subject of childbirth and post natal depression. I have close family who suffered, though I was lucky myself…I have seen what it can do to a family, but fortunately not to the extreme of the families in this novel. I would highly recommend this book to everyone!
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Jun 06, 2015 Kathryn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: australian-authors, reading-list-2015, fiction, 5-stars

This was an awful read - well executed, because it certainly made me want to keep reading, but just terrible to read about Anna, not coping with her new baby and just so dreadfully, dreadfully tired… I don’t want to say too much for fear of giving away details, but I’m glad I don’t have children and if I ever feel like I wish I could have a baby, I think I’d be cured if I came back and re-read this. It is haunting.

I originally gave this 4.5 stars, leaving off half a star because there were some ...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc-are, provided-by-publisher, aussie-author

Fractured is a devastating portrayal of a young family shattered by tragedy from debut author, Dawn Barker. When Anna is found bruised, battered and uncommunicative on a seaside cliff, her husband, Tony, imagines she has been attacked, perhaps car jacked. While he is relieved she has been found safe, their newborn son, Jack, is still missing and Anna can't, or won't, tell them where he is.

Structured along two alternating timelines that eventually meet, Fractured begins with the day that Anna an ...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian, mental-illness, aww2013

When Tony’s mother calls him during a meeting to tell him that his wife isn’t home, Tony immediately becomes worried. Tony and Anna welcomed baby Jack six weeks ago and it’s clear that Anna has been struggling a little with the constant broken sleep. Tony had told Anna this morning that his mother would pop around to help her out, maybe watch Jack so she could have a sleep so it’s very strange that Anna isn’t there.

Tony rushes home and while his mother waits at the house, he goes searching for A When Tony’s mother calls him during a meeting to tell him that his wife isn’t home, Tony immediately becomes worried. Tony and Anna welcomed baby Jack six weeks ago and it’s clear that Anna has been struggling a little with the constant broken sleep. Tony had told Anna this morning that his mother would pop around to help her out, maybe watch Jack so she could have a sleep so it’s very strange that Anna isn’t there.

Tony rushes home and while his mother waits at the house, he goes searching for Anna. There’s no sign of her for hours and finally he rings the police. When they find Anna, she is admitted immediately to hospital – the psychiatric ward. And there’s no sign of baby Jack. When he is finally found, the worst of Tony’s nightmares come shockingly true.

There’s no doubt that Anna is ill – she’s almost catatonic and when she comes out of the drugs it seems she has no memory of what has occurred. Tony is facing losing the most important people in his life and he also has to deal with the fact that one caused the loss of the other. He finds it hard to be with Anna, to even look at her, even though he knows that what she did isn’t really her. It has a name, this thing that changed her personality but that doesn’t make it any easier or make Tony’s grief any less. He has too much to deal with right now, he can’t face his wife as well.

A tragic incident, a resulting charge and the players in baby Jack’s life will forever have to deal with the many small things that contributed. It’s enough to tear a family apart.

I knew when I saw this book that I would have to read it immediately! I bought it on my trip into Dymocks the other week and read it the next day. I’m equal parts fascinated by and terrified of post-partum depression and psychosis. My great aunt suffered from at least one, and even now it remains slightly unclear which, because this was over 40 years ago, before it even had a name, when the solution was to put the woman in a mental hospital, usually for life. She tried to kill herself many times, she left her young child alone and was found in a hotel attempting to end her own life. Her husband worked very hard to find a doctor that could find an explanation other than “your wife is insane” and finally received a diagnosis of severe depression, most likely caused by the birth of their daughter. His solution was for her to never have another baby and she didn’t. Instead they adopted a little boy years later.

Today, the solutions are not quite so drastic. With early intervention, medication and support, people can successfully manage the depression and even have more children. My sister-in-law suffered post-natal depression after her second child and took medication for years but recently had a third child medication free. I have to admit, I don’t know as much about post-partum psychosis and what is being tried to treat it (I have read that if mistaken for depression, anti-depressants may not help). But for Anna, all of this knowledge and help came too late. It’s such a hard thing to be a mother, there’s so much pressure from every which direction to natural birth or not to natural birth, to breastfeed or not breastfeed, to co-sleep or have the baby in its own bassinette/cot/room, to start solids at 4 months or 6 months, to get your pre-baby body back and to be honest, it just goes on and on and on. I think that Barker perfectly captured this pressure and how it can impact upon someone who has strict ideas of what they want – Anna’s attempts to fall pregnant, her dream birth that didn’t happen, her difficulty in breastfeeding are all so brilliantly explored in this novel, without the author needing to spend a huge amount of time doing so. Anna’s exhaustion and yet her desire to ‘do it all’, to not want to hand the baby over to Tony (but become angry when he sleeps), to not want her mother-in-law to pop by to help, struck such a chord in me. We’ve all been there, at one stage or another when we’ve had babies! I am married to the most hands-on father in the world but I had to marvel at his ability to sleep through the screaming infant who was three feet away from his face. It used to piss me off and I’d kick him but when he’d offer to get up, I’d snap “Why bother, I’m awake already.”

Anna’s story broke my heart but I also understood the way in which Tony’s mother, Ursula, felt as well. It is like we are groomed as a society to “rank” crime and a mother harming her children is pretty much right up there at the top, be it deliberate or because of some other factor. It’s hard to get your head around such an act and it’s hard for people to understand the true impact of a mental illness at times, as well. No one expects psychosis and when a new mother is exhausted, snappy, emotional or manic, well to be honest, they’re just all the symptoms of being a new mother. I felt horribly sorry for Tony, who saw a few small signs, who urged Anna to see a doctor but couldn’t go with her due to being at work. He could only take on trust that what Anna told him was the truth and when it turned out to not be, he had to live with his small role just as Anna had to live with her role as well. It’s such a punishment in itself that there’s nothing else you could do to someone in Anna’s position to punish them more. Their every day life is more punishment than anything else that could be inflicted upon them.

Fractured is a fabulously written book that delicately explores a disturbing topic. It would be so easy to read a story like this in the paper and feel one way (probably the way that Ursula does) but this book gently encourages a reader to put themselves in everyone’s shoes, including Anna’s. It’s so easy to sink into books like this one and get lost in the story. It’s a fantastic debut novel and makes me excited about future books from this author. ...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Janine rated it it was amazing

This book engaged me from the start to the finish. A compelling and sad story about post natal depression and it's effect on the whole family. Apparently a debut novel from a new author, I shall watch out for her next book eagerly. ...more

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