In 2016 Rose discovers she carries a dangerous mutation of the BRCA1 gene. Rose is a brilliant oncology doctor with a beautiful wife, they are in the early stages of IVF to complete their already perfect lives. This news rattles Rose to her core. When she leaves to look after her difficult alcoholic father who has had a fall and needs a carer, she hopes to use the time to re-centre. It’s here, while cleaning out her father’s house she unlocks the past and discovers a sad connection to her grandmother, Nellie.

The story is told in two voices – Rose in 2016 and Nellie in the 1950s. Nellie has ovarian cancer and it is devastating to read how she suffers with brutal treatments and how her husband and society deal with her cancer and her death. We also learn about Nellie’s younger life as she is introduced to communism by the gregarious Ruth and the underlying sexual awakening she has.

I loved this book – it is the perfect balance of a lovely story balanced with the harshness and reality of cancer and the decisions people living with the BRCA1 gene face. Nellie’s story in particular is both interesting, thought provoking and heartbreaking.

This book touched my soul but when I read that its author passed away while writing it and her family and mentor, Inga Simpson, finished the story, it was even more poignant. Cancer can often be a heavy subject for a novel but perhaps because it was the author’s lived experience it is written in a way that neither diminishes its devastating effect nor makes light of it. It is a mirror that reflects a beautiful story of very brave women who suffer from this dreadful disease.

I highly recommend this brave, moving, funny and beautifully written story.

Reviewed by Nicola Skinstad

Kath O’Connor was a general practitioner, writer, swimmer and medical editor. She had essays and articles published in Eureka Street, The Australian Family Physician and the Medical Journal of Australia. Inheritance was completed after Kath won an Affirm Press mentorship. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2015 and wrote this novel while living with cancer, through many treatments and their side effects. After Kath’s diagnosis, she discovered that she shared a BrCa1 gene mutation with her grandmother, who died from the same disease in 1950. Kath lived in Castlemaine with her partner and their animals and died in 2019 at only 45 years old.