Watch for the Longest Day

Mark Nicholls

Apr 2019 · Prahran Publishing

About this ebook

It is December 1948. While their husbands self-sacrificingly remain at work in town, Sarahand her sister-in-law Jennifer spend yet another summer by the sea, watching the children in the deep water and trying to avoid the annual judgement-by-mother-in-law at the hands of the indomitable Alice. Secret relief comes for Jennifer when she meets an older man, Henry, who listens to her and provides an occasional oasis of sanity in the midst of her holiday madness. At the same time, Sarah is determined to put their family back on track by smartening up its image and exposing its atavistic ills to the disinfectant of sunlight and the open air. When Henry is discovered to be at the centre of this family’s business, the dynamic daughters-in-law have to stand firm and defy Alice, who guards their tragedy with all the calmness of the self-justified. 

About the author

MARK NICHOLLS has been performing on various Melbourne stages since the age of six and has an extensive list of credits as a playwright, composer, singer, actor, producer and director.  He is Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne where he has taught film since 1993. 

He is the author of Lost Objects of Desire: The Performances of Jeremy Irons (2012), Scorsese’s Men: Melancholia and the Mob (2004) and recently published articles on Italian Cinema, Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes and Sergei Diaghilev’s celebrated company, The Ballets Russes.

Mark is a film critic and worked for many years on ABC Radio and for The Age newspaper, for which he wrote a weekly column between 2007 and 2009.