BY ANNE CROWLEY
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAID
“After Tina Lamb loses her family home in a bitter divorce, she finds herself living in a caravan on the city’s fringes. Having raised four children and nursed her dying mum, she was not anticipating making a new start alone or from scratch… When Tina finds work caring for a wealthy elderly woman, it is a welcome break from an ageist, sexist job market. But Mrs Bell is anything but predictable. Highly educated, acerbic and intimidating, she is not the straightforward charge that Tina had hoped for. As the two women form an unlikely friendship, they soon discover that financial security is about more than having money. Topical and absorbing, People Like Us celebrates the power of female friendships and the promise of new beginnings found in unexpected places.” Source: Goodreads.
MY THOUGHTS
This is a confronting story and, sadly, not an uncommon one. It brings vividly close to home the reality of middle-aged women upended by sudden housing and work insecurity: their vulnerability, shame, frustration, constant anxiety, withering confidence and faltering courage.
‘Exhaustion … It’s all the energy required each day in reminding myself that I’m not empty of opinion or voice while pretending that I am’. ‘That’s what intimidation and uncertainty does though: it silences an otherwise knowing mind, stops if from rocking the boat, putting anything at risk. Survival is a terrifying force.’
Tina reflects on the on setbacks and injustices she experiences, and their impacts. ‘There’s no one or right way for a body to express its vulnerability.’ ‘I return, again and again, to the site of my pain like someone unable to stop cutting themselves.’ And in her sense of dislocation – ‘I belong nowhere’ – we can feel her pain.
But it’s not all miserable. She is grateful for the small kindnesses done her amidst the bullying and exploitation, and the friendships she ultimately develops in the caravan park and with the crotchety Mrs Bell. At times, too, she manages to be optimistic. ’One day’ becomes ‘an expression rich with possibility and home, that suggests a future.’ For Tina, hope is practical and concrete: ‘a roof over my head no one can take from me and secure work to allow for it.’
The fictional story is absorbing and told with humour and pathos – an engaging read – while raising awareness of the reality. The subject is dear to my heart. I believe that having a secure home is foundational to everything else – food security, hygiene, education, paid employment, mental and physical health. My first volunteer role, at age 21, was supporting a group of homeless teens learn life and employability skills in a share house provided by the local council.
Now I have a friend in her mid-sixties awaiting the court determination on her very acrimonious divorce that could well result in her becoming homeless – like many other women of our vintage, who are now among the fastest-growing group of people experiencing homelessness. People Like Us is aptly titled.
The book leaves room for optimism as Tina learns of a new innovative co-housing project to provide older women access to a secure, affordable home: ‘Sharing With Friends’. This is an exciting real initiative in Brisbane, discussed in the first 20 minutes of the Podcast, by the not-for-profit’s CEO Susan Davies and Sally Piper (click here). I recommend listening and sharing, along with the book!
