Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Get up Mum by Justin Heazlewood

Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Get Up Mum by Justin Heazlewood What's it like to be 12 and looking after a mentally ill parent? B y the time he turned 13, it was part of Justin Heazlewood’s routine to find the little ceramic container, pour out the tablets and count them as a way of making sure that his mother was taking her medication regularly. The Australian writer, musician and comedian – who also performs under the name the Bedroom Philosopher – has built a career on irreverence and satire. His last book, Funemployed, balanced humour with social commentary by taking aim at the bleak reality that comes with working in the creative industries. But his latest work, a memoir entitled Get Up Mum, is far more personal and intimate. “I always knew this book was going to get written some time,” Heazlewood tells Guardian Australia. “It was something I had to write, not wanted to write.” Focusing on one year of his youth, between the ages of 12 and 13, Get Up Mum gives readers a vivid insight into life in the coastal Tasmanian town of Burnie in the early 90s. On the surface, it seems almost like a stereotype of happy family life: there are family slide nights, trips to the seaside, and uncomfortably relatable scenes of awkward first crushes. But woven in between the familiar coming-of-age tale is the reason why, for Heazlewood, this is a story that needed to be told: it’s a way for him to finally face his experience growing up as the only child of a single parent with a debilitating mental illness. A young Justin Heazlewood: the book is peppered with excerpts from school assignments and diary entries. The story is told in present tense – a way for Heazlewood to give readers a chance to “hang out with 12-year-old me” – the good and the bad mixing together to form a picture of what was, for him, normal life: playing computer games at a friend’s house, watching Astro Boy before school, anxiously monitoring his mother for the warning signs that another dark spell was coming on, trying to drown out the sound of her talking to herself in the next room. He decided to write the book from his 12-year-old perspective because “for purposes of trying to get the message across of how intense my life was at an age that’s usually portrayed as fun and games, I thought, you really need to be there in the passenger seat”. Stepping back into the mind of his younger self was made easier by the fact that he had unusually rich source material to draw from. In between the unfolding story, the book is also peppered with excerpts from school assignments and diary entries from the time. “I think a lot of my mum’s love for me is just wrapped up in the fact she kept every single piece of schoolwork I ever did,” he says. It’s a bittersweet statement – this material shows just how matter-of-fact the pre-teen Justin was: “Cooked Jacket potato. Was Beautiful! got home. Mum was in a bad way. She was talking of killin’ herself. hell! did 3 and a half laps of track.” In addition to the diaries and assignments, there was also a wealth of secret cassette tapes he recorded as a child. He describes hiding his tape recorder at family get-togethers, secreting it near the couch during the regular weekend visits to his beloved nan and pop’s house, or furtively tucking it away during a family caravan trip. The cassettes also give an insight into the mindset of the person who made them. When asked about a scene in the book where he tapes over a somewhat nagging conversation with his nan, Heazlewood laughs. “It’s already such a weird hobby but then it gets weirder because … I’ve edited as I’ve gone … A picture drawn by a young Justin Heazlewood. “I think it was kind of an amazing exercise in me building my own narrative of my family … and it’s pertinent that there were no tapes from home in Burnie with my mum. Like, zero. It’s like – why would I tape this?” What the young Heazlewood was left with then was a record of all the good bits and none of the bad. “It’s almost like for a kid who didn’t have enough happy memories because I had to endure trauma at home, I needed to have access to more happy memories to sort of feed on in desolate times . I needed to be able to lie in bed and listen to the fun caravan trip last summer because there was just a wasteland around me.” On the page, the adult Heazlewood fills in those gaps between the curated memories. “I really was just a junior documentary maker who I’m now collaborating with.” Get Up Mum is equal parts funny and devastating. There are tender moments, like young Justin and his mother settling in to watch Melrose Place together and cracking jokes, or the early weekend mornings spent taking long coastal walks with his nan. Then there are the darker times: Justin approaching the house and hearing music blaring far too loudly and knowing what this signified for the coming weeks; coming home to his mother shredding pop cassettes because there were “evil spirits”. The full picture is complex, showing three generations of a family who love each other but struggle with managing the everyday reality of mental illness. “Mum had this illness that no one even used the name of, let alone knew what to do about it,” Heazlewood says. “There was virtually no support whatsoever.” Much of the responsibility fell to him. Throughout the book, the young Justin grapples with the consequences of this: whose job it is to take care of whom; whether being 13 means he’s a man or a child; if it’s OK to call the doctor on someone else’s behalf; about loving the mother he has but hating the things that lie outside his control. “Someone can have two completely conflicting opinions about their own life given the time of day,” Heazlewood says. “You can have two opposite forces just running side by side and they’re both valid and they’re both true. I was angry at the universe for putting me through this at the time. But then I’m so grateful … I’m so lucky to have the nan and pop I do. I really love my mum.” He pauses. “Even when she was sick she would get up and make me breakfast … no matter what … That’s a testament to her as a wonderful woman who I love dearly who was just also doing her best with an appalling situation and an appalling illness – just like I was doing my best.” Get Up Mum is out now. The Get Up Mum Melbourne launch is today at 4pm. All welcome. Men bring a plate. Meet my new boyhood memoir. 12-year-old Justin is keen to meet ya (but a bit shy). Signed copies available from the author HERE. Hear a conversation on RNs Life Matters. Read an interview in The Guardian. Hear an excerpt on Soundcloud. Watch the trailer on YouTube. There’s never a good time to have a baby or quit smoking or write your childhood memoir…you just have to do it. Get Up Mum. The acclaimed boyhood memoir in tuckshops and online via Booktopia. 2020: I’ve made a Get Up Mum soundtrack which will be released on Bandcamp May 28. It marks the two year anniversary of its release. Here is the first single Reverse Purgatory. 2019: The big news is I’ve been working on a 10-part series of Get Up Mum for some months. Everything will drop on RN’s Life Matters May 27. The episodes will air daily from 9:20am and be available on the Life Matters page. There’s also a big scrolling story about my tapes that will be featured on the ABC News site that day. It’s all rather exciting. You’ll be able to hear my cassettes. There will be voices. MEDIA. I make my Guardian debut in this classic interview from fellow only child Elizabeth Flux. A tender and compelling chateroo with Myf Warhurst. Pseudo counselling session with excellent psychologists on Triple R’s Radiotherapy. Lifestyles of the poor and infamous, or eloquent expose by one of Australia’s hardest working artists? You decide as I bare my artistic soul for Kill Your Darlings. Another day, another insanely personal interview with Frankie magazine. Rigorous pow-wow about schizophrenia on RNs Life Matters. Plus more radio action with ABC Adelaide & ABC Sydney. Sunday afternoon driving home with Mum (excerpt on Soundcloud.) Watch the trailer on YouTube. READER RESPONSES. “My name is Belinda, and I have just finished reading Get Up Mum. I heard about it on ABC News 24 early December – my apologies that I have forgotten the lady that recommended it, but regardless I am so glad she did. This message comes to say a huge thank you – I could imagine there would be so many mixed emotions writing and re-living the events you have captured in this book, and it certainly stirred many within myself as I read it. While I am a bit older than you, your book brought back so many wonderful memories of my childhood – especially the music and hours spent playing with tape recorders, the Australian comedy shows, and the skits we presented at school! However, now I also have direct experience of being a mum with a mental illness.

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