'So your grandchild will be raised by two lesbians. How do you feel about that?' Cathy Connolly, a high-powered senior executive in the education department, is revelling in the new-found joys of being Sam's grandmother. Suddenly, within the space of two weeks, her life plunges into disarray. A colleague at work is trying to push her out of her job, her architect husband, Steve, says he wants to head for the Kimberleys in a 4-wheel drive, her daughter has given her boyfriend the boot: 'Its hard to find the right man nowadays. They're all either married, losers, or gay!' Her brother is leaving his wife and two daughters for a woman twenty-five years younger: 'He's not thinking about anything. He's just thinking with his dick!' And her son is planning to donate sperm to a lesbian couple: 'A Turkey baster! Dear God! As if life isn't difficult enough already. Do they do it with the lights off as well?' But worst of all, Cathy finds she has cervical cancer: 'It's a bugger. I don't want to die. Not yet. I feel as if I'm only just beginning to live.' A fascinating and witty slice of Australian life in the 21st century, An Immaculate Conception highlights the dramatically changing standards, morals and attitudes, not only of the inhabitants of Sydney's beach suburbs, where it is set, but of the whole country.
About the Author: Trish has been a journalist, a radio and TV producer and presenter, as well as an author, for more than forty years. She has written several fiction and non-fiction works, as well as co-authoring five non-fiction books with Iain Finlay. A co-founder and Associate Producer of the internationally successful science programme for television, Beyond 2000, she has travelled, lived and worked on every continent. In recent years she and Iain have worked as volunteers with the Voice of Viet Nam radio network helping broadcasters there improve their English language programming. In 2008, an epic 21,000-kilometer five-month journey from Singapore to Venice, through south East Asia, across China and Central Asia by rail and other public transport became the subject of their most recent book: The Silk Train', which is also available through Amazon. The two of them have recently embarked on the challenging task of wrenching back the ownership of all their titles, written solo or together and are having a deal of enjoyment in establishing an e-publishing company, by which they hope to make all their previously published and unpublished, as well as soon to be written titles available to a wider public. To this end, all of 2010 was spent doing research in Asia, including Viet Nam, China, Mongolia and six months in Laos. She and Iain have children and grandchildren and, when not traveling, live in Australia on the far north coast of New South Wales.