MERRICKS author Megan Rogers has lived in many places, but says it was moving back to the Mornington Peninsula that became the inspiration for her debut novel The Heart is a Star.
Rogers spent her primary school years “scribbling” in her mother’s 1970s cookbooks and then telling people they were novels she’d written and published.
Now a mother of two, her own novel tackles the trials of middle age and second chances.
The book centres around the mid-life predicament of many women: competing demands of work, families, and marriage, and trying to understand what their heart and sensual selves are telling them.
Protagonist Layla Byrnes is exhausted. She is juggling a demanding job as an anaesthetist, a disintegrating marriage, young children, and a needy lover. And, most particularly, she’s managing her histrionically unstable mother, who repeatedly threatens to kill herself.
But this year it’s different. When her mother phones just before Christmas, she doesn’t follow the usual script. Instead, she tells Layla that there’s something she needs to tell her about her much-loved father.
Layla drops everything to rush to her childhood home on the wild west coast of Tasmania determined to finally confront her mother – and find out what happened to her father – and lay some demons to rest.
The Heart is a Star is about the complicated and messiness of mid-life, about the ways in which people navigate their world, and about how it is possible to uncover a sense of true self when forced to face “the myths that made us”.
While dealing with some complex and dark human storylines, Rogers says she has written The Heart is a Star to have an uplifting and inspiring ending, demonstrating how the protagonist has gained agency and empowerment.
Rogers says libraries have long been her haven, a place where she’s been able to foster a life-long love of books.
After a stint climbing the corporate ladder, she gave birth to her first child. One day she saw her daughter scribbling in cookbooks the way she had done and says she was instantly reminded that life is short and should be spent doing what we love.
In 2012, Australian writer Drusilla Modjeska selected Rogers out of hundreds of Australia-wide applications for six months of one-on-one mentoring and in 2013 she was invited to present her writing at Oxford University. In 2014 she completed a PhD in creative writing and won the vice-chancellor’s excellence award. In 2016 Rogers came first in the My Brother Jack literary awards and has been published in literary journals and academic publications.
The Heart is a Star will be out May 2023.
Details: meganrogerswriter.com or instagram.com/megan_rogers_writer/
First published in the Western Port News – 8 March 2023
