Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

BBC Radio 4 Extra

BBC Radio 4 FM

Stories from the Southern Cross

David Roper

Chris Womersley

Stories from the Southern Cross: Episode 2: The Mare's Nest, by Chris Womersley

Audiobooks

Drama

Episode 2

Episode 2: The Mare's Nest, by Chris Womersley

The Mare's Nest, by Chris Womersley

BBC Radio 4 - Stories from the Southern Cross, The Mare's Nest, by Chris WomersleySearch BBC

A son remembers his dad's obsession with his own father's suicide.

A son recalls his dad's obsession with his own father's disappearance and secret suicide. Read by Joel Davey and Linda Taimre. From July 2014.

Stories from the Southern Cross consists of three new pieces of writing produced in collaboration with the first Australia New Zealand Literature Festival. Each story represents a new voice from the Antipodes - a place at once very familiar, but in fact quite different.

The series depicts a world of aggressive ennui, of suburban sprawl battling with a voracious bush and extreme weather, of taboos and generations colliding as old, White Australia comes to terms with another generation of migration.

The second of these three stories is Chris Womersley's The Mare's Nest, in which the narrator remembers his father's psychological disintegration, making him anything but the epitome of the Australian male - the bloke. The father's delusions were fuelled by a very real and extraordinary landscape, by myth and recent history, and by his own father's suicide which - in a culture of denial - becomes his 'disappearance'.


Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Three stories produced in collaboration with the Australia New Zealand Literature Festival

Three pieces of writing produced in collaboration with the first Australia New Zealand Literature Festival.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Stories from the Southern Cross

Episode 2: The Mare's Nest, by Chris Womersley

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4