The Near Miss (28 page)

This novel was an intermittent labour of love over ten years, and in between other books. Thanks to Olga Lorenzo and my fellow students at RMIT for workshopping it. Also to Myfanwy Jones, Paddy O'Reilly and Kelly Gardiner for reading drafts, encouraging me and sharing the journey. Thanks to Simon for shutting me in the study and turning off the internet to make me finish it. The character Skipper owes a lot to my younger son, Redmond, as does his invisible friend Mr Sumper. Thanks to my older son, Ewen, for his general enthusiasm for all things book-related. The kindy scenes in this book were inspired by our now long-gone days at Alfred Nuttall Kindy, and everything I ever learned about kindy came from the legend that is Miss Sue. Ten Mile was inspired by Buchan, of course. I had the privilege of living in a co-operative up near Nimbin at one time in my life, and Melody's commune experiences are a little touched by that time I spent in Tuntable Falls. I'm grateful to my literary agent, Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown, for her loyal support and friendship through four novels; thanks Tara! Big thanks to the folk at Harper Collins: Anna Valdinger, Vanessa Williams and editor Kate Stone for backing
The Near Miss
and working to make it better book.

FRAN CUSWORTH
is a writer based in Melbourne, Australia. She worked as a newspaper journalist for twenty years, and recently had a midlife career crisis and retrained as a nurse. She won the Guy Morrison Prize for Literary Journalism in 2013. She is married with two children and she once lived in a commune, like Melody, and at another time she desperately wanted a second child, like Grace. Like Tom, she has pursued a few foolish dreams, and like Eddy, her courage has at times failed her. This is her fourth novel.

Impulse

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

First published in 2015

by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited

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harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Fran Cusworth 2015

The right of Fran Cusworth to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act
2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act
1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval
system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN 978 1 4607 0609 1 (epub)

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