The Old Woman Who Hated Rupert Murdoch

Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

The Old Woman Who Hated Rupert Murdoch by Joyce Sanders is a self-published novel from the owner of Soldier and Scholar, a bookshop in the quaint town of Castlemaine in Victoria, Australia. It is a tale of life-long hatred, murder, evil on a global scale, and of ‘going bush’. For my American friends, ‘going bush’ means escaping into the forest (or in this case the ‘Outback’).

I was pleasantly surprised by this debut novel. The storyline was compelling, and the desire to find out how it would all end kept me turning the pages. It also has a nice twist at the end, which I won’t ruin for you.

After reading several 700+ page novels recently this was a refreshing change, and just the right size for a binge-read.

Grab yourself a copy by clicking the button below, or if you happen to be in the area stop in and get a signed copy from Soldier and Scholar.

Synopsis:

An aging woman from the world of books and writing has watched for over half a century as fake news from the tabloid press has decided what Prime Minister she gets to have, whether she can have Medibank or Medicare, whether her taxes go to education or coal minds. When she sees the leader of the world’s tabloid press celebrating a Brexit win with a Scottish golf weekend to plan the victory of a future president of the U.S. she knows she has to take action if it is ever to end.

She imagines that she’ll happily go off to prison at this late time of life when she has little else to lose, perhaps to write in a quiet cell like Jeffrey Archer.

Instead, she finds that it is more natural to go on the run, abandoning everything for the first time in her life, learning to do without those small joys she has relied upon for seventy years; books and writing, good food, films and family. Setting up a precarious life hiding in the bush, she has plenty of time to reflect on her action and a lifetime of reasons that have driven her to it.

There comes a time to consider giving herself up to face the consequences. She returns to her family with a great deal of explaining to do, but finds that a confession is more complicated than she had imagined.

Even guilt can have a twist.