Overview

'A delicious read' - Pamela Rabe A Berlin cabaret star, a Jewish refugee, a Trans friend, a fresh-faced beauty in dungarees - each of these women teaches Cecilia a fundamental lesson in life. Romance abounds, but there is also haunting tragic loss. Cecilia's bittersweet story captures the glittering but dangerous LGBTQ+ underworld that hid in plain sight through most of the 20th century. When young Cecilia's (not entirely) innocent love for a school girlfriend is discovered and smashed she is determined to become 'normal' at all costs. She locks her secret desires away forever. But Dolly Wilde, niece of Oscar Wilde, finds the key. 'It's always felt perfectly normal to me!' And so begins a fascinating life of coded connections, passionate loves and difficult compromise. Cantankerous Cecilia is unrepentant as she looks back over a queer life defined by lesbian love and dangerous adventure. She's been an ambulance driver in two world wars, frolicker in decadent Weimar Berlin (Gay Capital of the World), rally car driver in the 1936 Olympics - and part-time spy. By the 1970s a sweet smile entices her to brave her fears and openly march for Gay Pride. At every step Cecilia finds lovers and enemies - and sometimes it's tricky to determine which is which. Now she's cornered, really cornered - how to escape? Cecilia's adventures are set against the rise of Communism, Fascism and budding Gay Liberation with the backdrop of London, Berlin and Melbourne. Whether she wants to or not, she becomes embroiled in the politics and espionage of her time - forced into a stint with MI5. Her life is in danger more than once. A Secretive Life shines a unique light on lesbian invisibility and secrecy through the 20th century drawing on real events and real lives such as Dolly Wilde, Radclyffe Hall, Vita Sackville-West and Edna Walling. Life was a cabaret for Cecilia in 1920s Berlin where the gay clubs never closed - until suddenly the doors were slammed shut. Today we openly name what was once clandestine, from bi to pan to polyamorous. Cecilia would applaud the advances, yet her eyes would betray wistfulness: for her the secrecy was erotic. 'Moving, sexy and funny ... brilliantly interwoven with real historical figures and events' Georgine Clarsen '... sparkles with crackling dialogue and sharp wit. Thrilling' Sylvia Martin

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9781922628770

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Reviews

This intergenerational story of lesbian love is wonderful! Moving, sexy and funny, it is brilliantly interwoven with real historical figures and events that span most of the twentieth century. It traces the emergence of a lesbian identity through the eyes of an acerbic and thoroughly endearing woman who helped to create the world we now live in. This is a terrific read. - Georgine Clarsen - Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists Sara Hardy's well-honed skills as a biographical researcher and dramatist shine as she interweaves fictional characters and historical women like Vita Sackville West, Radclyffe Hall and Edna Walling in her first novel, which sparkles with crackling dialogue and sharp wit. Thrilling, funny, poignant and tragic, A Secretive Life takes the reader on an engrossing journey across decades and continents as narrator Cecilia, trapped in the 'velvet prison' of a nursing home in Kent, recalls her long and eventful life. From early experience in a women's ambulance unit in France at the end of WWI to competing for the British team in the cross-country rally at Hitler's 1936 Olympic Games to driving ambulances during the Blitz in London, Cecilia's love of cars and women form a central thread on this wild ride through the changing patterns of twentieth century lesbian life. From the clandestine to the out and proud, it is a history that needs to be told. - Sylvia Martin - Ink in Her Veins: the Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer It's very entertaining. A delicious read. - Pamela Rabe - multi award winning actor - from Wentworth to The Wizard of Oz Sara Hardy's bold, earthy and wonderfully propulsive novel transports us across the 20C, from London between the wars to (naughty) Weimar-era Berlin to (more reserved) Melbourne, with appearances from the likes of Radclyffe Hall and Dolly Wilde (Oscar's niece) to Vita Sackville-West and Margareta Webber (of Melbourne bookshop fame). And some wartime ambulance and future racing car drivers for good measure! An utter delight! - Martin Shaw - literary agent and former head book-buyer for Readings bookshops Hardy's meticulous research and powers of story-telling give us an insightful and intimate novel that will appeal to a wide audience. Here is a novel in which Cecilia, the narrator, travels across continents and decades of social change, from pre-World War II to the 1970s. Furthermore, it focuses on the lives of lesbian women - historical and fictitious. - Sandra Shotlander - Playwright and Senior Advisor, Women Playwrights International Bold, dramatic, funny and sexy. A Secretive Life is a fictionalised account of the lesbian demimonde that flourished despite and because of the great upheavals of the twentieth century. Cecilia, introduced as an ingenue in the roaring 1920s, goes on to encounter fascinating women including the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Dolly Wilde, Edna Walling and Radclyffe Hall via London, Paris, Berlin and Melbourne. - Loretta Smith - A Spanner in the Works - the extraordinary story of Alice Anderson and Australia's first all-girl garage

Author Information

Sara Hardy is the author of two biographies: 'The Unusual Life of Edna Walling' and 'Dame Joan Hammond, Love and Music', both published by Allen and Unwin. 'A Secretive Life' is her first novel.Sara grew up in England, trained in theatre and dance at Dartington College of Arts, and worked as an actor/playwright with various fringe theatre companies in London including the ground-breaking Gay Sweatshop which was the first professional gay theatre company in Britain. Sara moved to Australia in 1981 and lives in Melbourne. Her plays include Vita! - a fantasy and More Female Parts.Find more at: www.sarahardy.com.auand https: //sarahardywrites.blogspot.com/

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