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9781764139403

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‘Beautifully written, Sundowner of the Skies is no hagiography ... This cathartic family history is a profound exploration of inter-generational trauma and its effects on individuals, families and their shared memories’ JUDGES, NSW PREMIER’S HISTORY AWARD ‘A rattling, searing, soulful story that takes flight on the Gipsy Moth wings of the author’s relentless research and willingness to pull back every curtain of this extraordinary man’s life, sometimes at her own emotional peril. I didn’t want this trip to end’ TRENT DALTON ‘Author Mary Garden writes beautifully and honestly of her father, Oscar Garden, a hero from the golden age of aviation when intrepid men in tiny biplanes crossed the globe in flights that startled the world’ GRANTLEE KIEZA ‘An important piece of aviation history and a courageous personal story, vividly told. I found it enjoyable in every way. Beautifully told and bravely too, the width of research is astonishing. Sundowner of the Skies should find enthusiastic readers, grateful readers in the aviation world, and thoroughly engaged ones in the wider one’ MAURICE GEE ‘I have just read your book Sundowner of the Skies again. What a fascinating story. Your father was an incredible person. That was an extraordinary flight he did from Wyndham, over Halls Creek and then to Alice Springs using dead reckoning alone. I think it took amazing skill to find Alice’ DICK SMITH ‘This bare bones outline of an aviator’s career is simply the skeleton which Mary Garden, with an objectivity rare in a daughter’s account of a father’s troubled life, fleshes out with solid research into family history, recollections from friends and colleagues and extracts from the files. Sundowner of the Skies is a fine biography and aviation fans will love every mile of it, while the social historian will revel in the stories of how things were so different’ JIM SULLIVAN, OTAGO DAILY TIMES ‘Mary Garden has done us all a great service by bringing to public gaze this fascinating tale about her highly talented but hugely troubled father and the impact he had on her. The Sundowner came and went but his story now remains’ ROSS FITZGERALD, WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN  ‘… maps out a cascade of acrimonious family dysfunction, religious zealotry, bitterness over unequal inheritance, alcoholism, and grudges nurtured for generations. Oscar Garden’s achievements were noteworthy and he deserves to be remembered’ GARRY SHILSON-JOSLING, AUSTRALIAN AVIATION ‘It’s no hagiography – warts and all she promises and doesn’t hold back about a man who was much better with planes than people’ JIM EAGLES & MARK FRYER, NEW ZEALAND HERALD ‘Mary Garden’s portrait of her father could be read as an attempt to retrieve his lost fame, but it’s probably best read as a daughter’s homage to a father who is at once familiar and a mystery … Garden’s deep affection for her flawed father shines through’ STEVEN CARROLL, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD ‘A searingly honest and well-written narrative, packed with fascinating and surprising detail’ CHRIS CLIFFORD, FLYPAST ‘Oscar Garden’s daughter makes no secret of the fact that her father was a difficult person and the exposé of fractured family relationships permeate the whole book from the first page to the last. Oscar was a pilot and he achieved a great deal, but he was also a human being and Mary Garden has held nothing back in telling this story of a man who might for some odd quirk in history, until now, have been labelled “The Forgotten Aviator”’ STUART MCKAY, THE MOTH ‘The author has candidly described her father’s life – warts and all. One of her greatest strengths is her ability to write disarmingly of the main characters in her story, including of herself. This style has made this book a great biography of one of the world’s unknown aviators. Mary has done her father Oscar proud. She has assured him of his place in aviation history’ MARTIN PLAYNE, ANCESTOR ‘A fabulous book … which shows painstaking research, including a family tree, and it is all very well written. The story needed to be told’ ROB CHARLTON (FRAES)

Author Information

Mary Garden is an author and a journalist, with a PhD in journalism (University of the Sunshine Coast). Her memoir The Serpent Rising: a journey of spiritual seduction, first published in 1988, won the 2021 High Country Indie Book Award. Sundowner of the Skies: the story of Oscar Garden, the forgotten aviator was shortlisted for the 2020 NSW Premier's History Award. Her latest book My Father's Suitcase, a memoir on intergenerational trauma and surviving family violence, has won multiple awards. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including The Humanist, New Zealand Herald, The Weekend Australian, The Guardian, Newsroom (NZ), Meanjin, New Zealand Geographic, and scores of aviation magazines. Born in Whakatane, New Zealand, she made Queensland her home in the late 1970s. She is an avid cyclist and is working on a book about her family's work in the bicycle industry and her love of cycling.

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