'In Other People's Houses publishing legend Hilary McPhee exchanges one hemisphere for another. Fleeing the aftermath of a failed marriage, she embarks on a writing project in the Middle East, for a member of the Hashemite royal family, a man she greatly respects. Here she finds herself faced with different kinds of exile, new kinds of banishment.
'From apartments in Cortona and Amman and an attic in London, McPhee watches other women managing magnificently alone as she flounders through the mire of Extreme Loneliness.
'Other People's Houses is a brutally honest memoir, funny, sad, full of insights into worlds to which she was given privileged access, and of the friendships which sustained her.
'And ultimately, of course, this is the story of returning home, of picking up the pieces, and facing the music as her house and her life takes on new shapes.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'In the spring of 2003, a person from Hilary McPhee’s past got in touch with her. McPhee did not remember the woman’s name but recognised her immediately when they met for coffee. At high school they had played hockey together for a team called the Colac Battlers. The woman had been working for years as a personal assistant at a palace in Jordan, and her purpose in contacting McPhee wasn’t merely to reminisce. At one point in their conversation, she lowered her voice, glanced around the busy inner-Melbourne café and said that McPhee might hear from someone in Amman, the Jordanian capital, about a writing project.' (Introduction)
In Islamic legend, and in the Victorian language of flowers, the yellow rose signifies infidelity in love. ‘‘Late one summer evening, outside in the heavy scent of the yellow roses he’d planted, he tells me that he wants to keep moving. And so, I flew to Amman a few weeks later, as if to another planet.’’ ‘‘He’’ is her husband of 20 years. The marriage is over. So concludes the first chapter of Hilary McPhee’s memoir, Other People’s Houses.' (Introduction)
In Islamic legend, and in the Victorian language of flowers, the yellow rose signifies infidelity in love. ‘‘Late one summer evening, outside in the heavy scent of the yellow roses he’d planted, he tells me that he wants to keep moving. And so, I flew to Amman a few weeks later, as if to another planet.’’ ‘‘He’’ is her husband of 20 years. The marriage is over. So concludes the first chapter of Hilary McPhee’s memoir, Other People’s Houses.' (Introduction)
'In the spring of 2003, a person from Hilary McPhee’s past got in touch with her. McPhee did not remember the woman’s name but recognised her immediately when they met for coffee. At high school they had played hockey together for a team called the Colac Battlers. The woman had been working for years as a personal assistant at a palace in Jordan, and her purpose in contacting McPhee wasn’t merely to reminisce. At one point in their conversation, she lowered her voice, glanced around the busy inner-Melbourne café and said that McPhee might hear from someone in Amman, the Jordanian capital, about a writing project.' (Introduction)
