Bridge Blues on the Milliner’s Mile

Paula Xiberras

Kim Kelly and her husband have visited Tasmania only once and that was 3 years ago on a whim. That visit was a coincidence, as almost immediately on their arrival alighting from the cab at their hotel they ran into a friend of theirs from Sydney who was at the time living here.

Kim is fascinated by Australia while feeling very grateful to have been born in this extraordinary country she attempts to uncover its complex contradictions in her novels. The sometimes shallowness juxtaposed against extraordinary extremes of generosity.

Kim Kelly most recent novel is ‘The Blue Mile’, a novel about the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, that plot paralleling the construction of a relationship. The building of a bridge, piece by piece, like a relationship, spanning distances and differences, a challenge to and beyond the final awe inspiring completion of design when everything fits into place.

As to the bridge in question, Kim hasn’t climbed it and tells me ‘no way’ and that she is ‘terrified’ but she does add her maternal grandmother was one of the first people in the 20’s that did walk the bridge, with her red curly hair and 5ft tall, small frame she achieved the feat with no safety harness.

Another grandmother provides the inspiration for the millinery content of the book. Kim explains that her paternal grandmother was a milliner but not with the amount of support she required to be a success in a man’s world, as it was at the time. Kim remembers her grandmother who was ‘outlandish and extraordinary’ on one occasion appearing in a ‘concoction like a disorderly Christmas tree’ .Kim says in it’s way this book is exacting revenge on her grandmothers behalf, giving her the recognition she didn’t necessarily achieve in her career as a milliner.

Kim’s grandfather provides equal inspiration for the book, although growing up in poverty, like the novel’s protagonist, Eoghan, Kim’s Granddad joined the army and worked hard for self improvement and to gain self respect. He was interested in self education and she remembers the Readers Digest magazines on a range of topics including anatomy and biology.

Kim’s dad provided more inspiration, an abiding memory of her dad sitting around the table and challenging the children to come up with stories and did they work hard to impress!. This is perhaps the key to Kim’s ability of a clever turn of phrase such as that manifest in her protagonist, Olivia’s love of quirky words and phrases such as the paraphrase ‘tumbling into his left dimple’.

Kim believes in the sacred connection between the author and the reader and how every reader finds something meaningful to themselves in their reading.

Her books include male and female first person narratives, all part of the yin and yang balance and Kim doesn’t believe in a clear demarcation line of bad guys and good guys as her novels are about real people with ‘a little bit of magic’ thrown in.

The Blue Mile is out now published by Pan Macmillan.