City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

I knew you'd have brown eyes, Mary Tennant

eng

autobiography

portraits

no index present

non fiction

I knew you'd have brown eyes

Mary Tennant

A conservative Catholic family in Queensland in 1974 is no place to be a pregnant teenager. With an authoritarian mother and facing enormous societal pressures, Mary Tennant must make a decision to save her future ? but it is one that will haunt her for the rest of her life. After putting her baby son up for adoption, Mary tries to return to her old life and her studies to be a nurse but finds that she cannot escape thoughts of her son or feelings of guilt. The situation is made worse because her mother and family completely ignore what has happened and Mary cannot talk to anyone about how she feels. Even after travelling throughout remote Australia as a nurse and health advisor, eventually marrying and having two daughters, Mary feels incomplete and restless. Then the adoption laws regarding contact between birth mothers and their children are changed. Mary decides that the time might be right to see if her son wants to meet her. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems and Mary's life and world is about to be turned upside down all over again. Spanning forty years and set against a backdrop of changing social attitudes in Australia, this is the story of a young girl searching for meaning, coming to terms with her guilt and grief, and learning that breaking the silence brings empowerment

I knew you would have brown eyes