Emily Brewin is a freelance writer and secondary school teacher. Hello, Goodbye is her first novel. She has been awarded an Australian Society of Authors Emerging Writers’ and Illustrators’ mentorship for her fiction writing, and has been shortlisted for two manuscript development programs. She lives in Melbourne’s inner north with her two children, and is currently working on her second novel.
It’s 1968 and free-thinking country girl May Callaghan’s world is turned upside down when she finds out she’s pregnant to her boyfriend Sam, who is awaiting draft orders. A profoundly moving story of love during a time of great social change. May Callaghan is seventeen years old and on her own. At least that’s how it feels.
Her devoutly religious mother and her gentle but damaged father are fighting, and May’s boyfriend, Sam, has left their rural hometown for Melbourne without so much as a backward glance.
When May lies to her parents and takes the train to visit Sam at his shared house in Carlton, her world opens wide in glorious complexity. She is introduced to his housemates, Clancy, an indigenous university student, and Ruby, a wild bohemian. With their liberal thinking and opposition to the war in Vietnam, they are everything that May’s strict Catholic upbringing should warn her against.
May knows too well the toll that war has taken on her father, and the peace movement in the city has a profound effect on her. For a while, May’s future burns bright. But then it begins to unravel, and something happens to her that will change her life forever.
Hello, Goodbye by Emily Brewin is published by Allen & Unwin and is available now in all good bookstores.
Read more about Emily Brewin here
The Book Podcast 
Emily is certainly tackling some big social issues in her upcoming books. Having been a teenager in the late 1960s I’ll be interested to revisit the period through ‘Hello Goodbye’. Another interview that has convinced me to read the book – the list is getting fairly long now Rose, so thanks again.
cheers
Glenda
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Loved this. The year I was born! Great to read a novel set in this era. Would love to read a sequel with focus on Lucys story. Recommended for youbg adults too
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Enjoyed this, recapturing my teenage years (minus the pregnancy 😇). Lovely story.
cheers
Glenda
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