https://www.northernbooks.com.au/janecafarella
Good news! The print version of my memoir, CLEAVED – A story of loss, legs and finding family, will be available from Amazon and all other outlets from 31 July 2024, RRP $34.99(AUD).
The PDF version of CLEAVED will still be available on this website for $3.99 (AUD) for those who prefer to read on their devices. The PDF version can be downloaded to your computer or other device. (Make sure you move it out of downloads to a file of your choice. Email me if you have trouble.)
Either way, you’ll be helping people with lymphatic disease, as $1 from each purchase will be donated to the USA-based Lymphatic Research and Education Network (LE&RN), the world’s leading organization for research into lymphatic disease.
CLEAVED is the story of me and my sister Juliana, and how we grew up under the same roof, each cleaved to a different parent, foot soldiers in the family war.
The situation was normal, even if I wasn’t. “Just tell them you were born that way,” my mother said when I was taunted at school for having one fat and one skinny leg.
There was no name for my “big leg”, as my mother called it, and no cure, so it was largely ignored, subsumed by the bigger family problems.
The mysterious swelling disease was later diagnosed as Milroy’s disease, a rare genetic form of lymphoedema.
The emotional cleaving became physical when our parents separated when Juliana was 18 and I was 17. I went with Mum and she went with Dad.
Six months later, an explosive discovery blew my mother and me away from my sister and the rest of the family for decades.
“They got the wrong ones. You’re like Dad,” Juliana said when we finally met again 21 years later.
A coming-of-age story and a mystery, CLEAVED is a tale of tender and fraught reunions and partings, and of how my sister and I lost and then found each other.
If you’re in Castlemaine in Central Victoria on 31 July join me for the official launch of the print version at the Tap Room, at The Mill, 9 Walker St.
I’ll be in conversation with Alisoun Downing, friend, neighbour, literature lover and English Language teacher. I’m hoping my sister Juliana will also join me. She’s been unwell, so fingers crossed she recovers by then.
Want to order a signed copy of CLEAVED direct from me? Contact me at jane.cafarella@gmail.com. (Postage $12). I’m also happy to speak to your book club, in person or via Zoom.
See Book Club discussion questions here:https://janecafarella.com.au/blog/
CLICK BELOW FOR THE PDF VERSION OF CLEAVED
How to download:
- Click the download button above and follow the prompts to pay.
- Check your email (and spam) for your receipt.
- Click the word “download” on the receipt.
- The PDF will appear in your “downloads” file on your computer.
- Save it to the file of your choice – e.g. documents. If you leave it in “downloads”, when you open it again, it will regard it as another download and ask you to pay, as there is a download limit of one copy per purchase. If this happens, don’t pay again! Email me at jane.cafarella@gmail.com and I will help you.