One Hundred Years Of Betty is the fourth novel by award-winning, best-selling Australian playwright, screenwriter and author, Debra Oswald. About to reach the amazing milestone of one hundred years old, Betty Rankin is looking back on her life. She quickly points out that memories of her very early years are likely inaccurate: “The memory business is untrustworthy, even with a robust attempt at candour, but I will do my best to be honest.”

Significant amongst those early memories: the shame of poverty throughout her childhood, motherless at seven, evacuated out to Cornwall (where she feels loved for the very first time) at eleven. In her teens, a runaway, a job in a munitions factory, pregnancy and a forced adoption, emigrating to Australia on her own, and marriage to an older man. Betty is lucky to make two lifelong friends on board the ship, although a misunderstanding means a shipboard almost-romance goes unrequited. Sliding doors…

Betty’s life may feel unremarkable to her: enough women have been unhappily married, widowed early and left to earn a living whilst raising two young children. Many would watch their friends lose partners and rally around. Not all would model nude for a well-known artist, become close friends with gays and enjoy a younger lover. Fewer would travel and teach English in other countries. Almost none would decide to live off-grid for a time.

Notable is her daughter’s wedding, which plays out like the Mexican telenovelas she likes to watch, an event so melodramatic, it is only later rivalled by Betty’s first book launch. A career as a TV script writer is certainly something different; the misogyny, sexual harassment and discrimination aren’t.

Betty’s life is touched, personally, or to those close to her, by drug addiction, cancer, AIDS, a religious sect, conscription, PTSD, women’s lib, and infidelity. How she manages to take almost all of it in her stride is what makes her extraordinary.

Betty is perceptive from a young age, later noting that “The randomness of physiognomy is not considered as much as it should be in how lives play out” because “my face didn’t have the infant proportions that release care-giving hormones in grown-up humans.”

But after her time in Cornwall, “when circumstances pulled me into dark corners, I could remember how things were in St Agnes. If I felt wretched and worthless, I understood it was possible to feel differently. I knew, in my body, what it’s like to be valued and cared for, how joy sits in my belly, how bold I can be to try something when I feel cherished.”

When, as an adult, others admonish her to live in the present “Savouring a past joy is a risk-free way to circulate some lovely mood-enhancing chemicals. And I believe ‘living in the future’ has value too— to imagine, plausibly, a future moment when one’s present suffering will have ended and good feelings will likely return. The trick is knowing when to live in the past, present or future.”

Oswald really has a way with words: “…wearing a suit made of tweed fabric so coarse and bristled you could’ve grated carrots with it” and “When the young man looked up, I quickly twisted my neck away so abruptly the movement was akin to a chiropractic adjustment of my cervical vertebrae” and “the silver beads are so spiky, I was worried my dance partner would scratch up his hands when we were dancing. This dress turns me into a human pot-scourer” are examples

Her characters sometimes live by interesting philosophies: “My new pal Pearl was an enthusiastic collector of gossip. (Please note: there is no judgement in me saying that. I’d argue that a little gossip of the kind-hearted sort is better than a lack of curiosity about our fellow humans.)”

The authenticity of Oswald’s descriptions of various episodes of Betty’s life make it clear that she quite often draws on personal experience. A great many of the things Betty shares about her life will resonate strongly with readers of a certain vintage, either through their own experience, or those of family, friends or acquaintances. Notwithstanding this, Betty’s story has universal appeal due, in no small part, to her down-to-earth attitude, her self-deprecating humour, her honesty, and her warts-and-all candidness. Oswald has nailed it again!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Allen & Unwin.

'Meet Betty: storyteller, feminist, eternally curious and phenomenally old. On the eve of her hundredth birthday party, Betty tells us her story.' And what a story it is. From poverty, the Blitz, war, migrating to Australia becoming a housewife and so much more. A full life. Yes. An interesting life. Yes.

This is a wonderful story, that has a bit of everything. It is emotional yet is uplifting, the story shows the strength and courage on this one woman. It is amazing and well worth the read. I highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really enjoyed Debra’s last novel The Family Doctor and was taken in my the title of this one. This is the story of Betty Rankin, a woman who is nearing her 100th birthday. Told in a conversational way I felt like I had just sat down with Betty as she told me all about her life. I loved the way she regularly broke the fourth wall and gave the reader hints to things to come. She had me in stitches as she told me about things like a short history of her hair and made me think with her thoughts on aging.

A tale of an ordinary woman, but one who was strong, resilient, funny and humble, I loved the way history and personal events were blended together. The seventh child of ten, the reader is drawn in immediately by her birth story and we then get to see her grow up through wars, move to Australia suffer both mental and physical health issues and become a wife, mother, lover and writer. The story is engaging and you are definitely treat to all the highs and lows of life. I particularly enjoyed her close friendships, seeing her relationships with her children and her finding a career in later life. There is so much history over a hundred year period and I enjoyed the seeing different events included and seeing how society changed over time. I’m so glad I got a chance to meet Elizabeth, Betty, Beth, Liz, Lizzie and hear her story.

One of ten children Betty Rankin and her siblings live with their parents in Deptford, London. Her family are poor, the situation gets worse during the Blitz and as a teenager she decides to migrate to Australia. Betty's happy to be leaving England and the memories behind and have a fresh start.

Aboard the SS Asturias, she shares a cabin with two young women Pearl Jowett a sweet girl who wants everyone to love her and Athena Koutsis and she's traveling to Australia and marrying Nick and they have never met and Leopold Neumann is a young Jewish man and he’s escaping the Holocaust and ghosts and everyone disembarks in Sydney.

Over eighty years later Betty looks back at her life, how the poor young girl from London has grown up and is now an old woman and she has witness and experienced many things, from surviving the Blitz, making her own way in England and later in Australia. Betty made explosives during the war, worked as a waitress, she’s been a wife and widow, mother and friend, she’s protested against the Vietnam War and rights for women, and she observed the terrible AIDS crisis, travelled to Mexico and had a lover, and became a screenwriter and an author.

I received a copy of One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald from NetGalley and Allen & Unwin in exchange for an unbiased review.

A story about a resilient woman, despite all the setbacks, detours and nothing going as planned Betty kept putting one foot in front of the other and coped with illness, deaths and loss and being hurt and various tragedies in her lifetime. Betty loved her children and one man unconditionally, her friends and what a quirky and interesting group, found family and people from all walks of life and made connections with them.

An uplifting and thought provoking narrative, that will stay with you and long after you’ve turned the last page and no one want’s to turn a hundred and look back and think my century on earth was boring and I wasted my time and I should have done more and Betty didn’t and that’s what I got from reading this amazing book.

Debra Oswald is the author of The Family Doctor and writer of the hit television show Offspring and she certainly knows how to construct a plot about messy and complicated families, relationships and drama and five stars from me.

🌟 5 Stars 🌟 Achingly beautiful. Poignant. Devastatingly human.

Meet Betty: storyteller, feminist, and an unstoppable force of nature. On the cusp of her 100th birthday, Betty reflects on her extraordinary life—from a childhood in pre-war London and surviving the Blitz, to love, loss, and everything in between.

This book broke me in the best possible way. I ugly cried through Betty’s raw and heartfelt journey, a masterful exploration of the wounds we carry, the ties that bind us, and the resilience that shapes us. Debra Oswald weaves a breathtaking narrative of generational trauma, complex family dynamics, motherhood, friendship, and the indelible power of love, all set against a backdrop of profound social change.

Uplifting yet bruising, this is a story about life finding a way—about living boldly and fully, no matter the challenges. Betty’s fierce spirit and incredible story will stay with me forever, a reminder that even the most seemingly ordinary lives are nothing short of extraordinary.

📖 Thank you, @NetGalley and @AllenAndUnwin, for this unforgettable eARC.

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Vibrant, captivating, reflective.

Betty: voracious, curious, compelling and almost 100 reflects on her breathtaking life complete with joy, sorrow, adventure, indignation, love and wit. Seeing the changes of the century from the 1920’s in such an intimate yet shared portrait of women just breathtaking.

I didn’t want to put this book down yet at the same time I wanted to savour the time with Betty and her life. Highly recommended 5 star read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Allen & Unwin for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.