Life with Birds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rennex, Bronwyn.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Military history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (154 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Collingwood : Black Inc., 2022.

Summary:

A luminous account of largely unrecognised experiences in the aftermath of war. This is not a war story about heroism or healing trauma, but an attempt to fill the gaps in a family story in the wake of the Vietnam War and re-animate a father never really known. Life with Birds invests in the small scale, the domestic and the ordinary as an overlooked part of Australian military history.Bronwyn Rennex has used whatever materials she could find in order to attempt to retrieve her father - family stories, love letters, legal documents, birds - and the gaps between these documents form perhaps the most important part of this story: a failure that describes a loss. Rather than describing her mother's grief at her father's death, Rennex uses love letters and her mother's written claim for a war widow's pension to map the shape of her mother's love and loss.Told in fragments and mixing speculation, imagination and guesswork, the narrative is personal, angry, political and also funny, balancing a desire for some form of testimony with a commitment to questioning how we talk about war.This is a poignant and compelling account of largely unrecognised experiences in the aftermath of war.

Contents:

Intro

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Earlier that night on TV: Prisoner - Episode #1.81

Birth marks

Life Lessons #1 - counting to six in Japanese

A silent smoky battle

Life Lessons #2 - Dad gives my 11-year-old sister Maree an impromptu lesson in self-defence while she sits on our back steps

Jungle warfare

Life with Battles #1

Life with Battles #2

The year of no talking

Life with Birds #1

Life with Birds #2 - things I learned

Life with Birds #3

Under fire

Regretful sales

Mum's calls

Stressed-out songbirds

Rissoles and Budgies

First visit to the Australian War Memorial

The list

Pink and peaceful

A woman of letters

What if it was a love letter?

Shades of grey

Hooray

A photo of Uncle Ted

N.T.R. #1

N.T.R. #2

A uterus picture and a passport

The first time I speak to Denise about the night Dad died, thirty-eight years later

Before and after

More regretful sales

My big christening

Family secrets (that I know about) #1 - Dad's secret book

Family secrets (that I know about) #2 - Mum's secret book

The angry pages

Report of death

Honk if you are the son or daughter of a Vietnam Veteran

Putting bones back in a ghost

Perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness

A correction from Colin

Not birds, but crocodiles

A What the Fuck look

Podría morir pronto

Visiting Uncle Len

Children of a Lesser God

Lollies and landscapes

Mum's version (from her travel diary)

Family secrets (I know about) #3 - How Mary Killed Ivy

In silence #1

In silence #2

Family secrets (that I know about) #4

Heart story #3 (shortest version)

Boredom can lead to excess

A visit

Life as a bird

A white Christmas

Death as a bird

Frankly thanks

Different angles.

Another visit to the War Memorial

Third visit to the War Memorial

If one of the bodies was his

Birdness

Notes

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Back Cover.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Rennex, Bronwyn Life with Birds

ISBN:

9781743822456

OCLC:

1319215828