There’s a woman you can always call…
There’s the woman who gets the 11pm messages.
The twelve-minute voice notes.
The “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but…”
The woman who knows when “I’m fine” definitely doesn’t mean fine.
The woman who listens to the same story for the 47th time.
And who always calls you back.
Anyway, Call Me Back is a one-sided conversation between two women, unfolding over the course of a year.
We follow one middle-aged woman through the ordinary chaos of her life as she starts trying to reinvent herself.
She buys a tiny rescue lapdog that somehow grows into a horse and eats everything in sight.
Her kids are growing up far too fast.
Her mum is getting older and needs more support.
Her marriage is changing, and she isn’t completely sure how or why.
And somewhere amongst the school runs, family dramas, questionable decisions and approximately 47 unfinished thoughts, she starts wondering what the next version of her life might look like.
So she tells her friend about it.
The big things.
The little things.
The ridiculous things she doesn’t think she should say out loud.
The things that make her laugh.
The things that keep her awake.
The things she doesn’t quite know what to do with yet.
And gradually, over those twelve months, all those seemingly ordinary messages become the story of a life changing.
It’s funny.
Tender.
A little bit chaotic.
And very much about the strange, wonderful business of being a woman in the middle of your life.
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The story behind the book
I have a friend who gets all of this from me.
And more.
Much more.
Our messages jump from the completely mundane to the deeply important and back again, often within about five minutes.
A photo of something ridiculous.
A question that absolutely cannot wait.
A minor household crisis that seems major.
A life revelation.
A very long voice memo.
Sometimes all in the same conversation.
And those sometimes ridiculous messages got me thinking…
What if this was a book?
So I wrote one.
But before you start wondering whether I’ve turned our private messages into a novel…
Absolutely not. I would never break girl code.
The book is completely fictional.
But those random conversations were the little spark that inspired it.
Because there is something about the women we can always call.
The women who know the backstory.
Who don’t need the whole explanation.
Who can make us laugh when we desperately need to.
Who will listen to the same thing again and again… and again.
Who will tell us when we’re being ridiculous.
Who will let us be ridiculous anyway.
And who, when we send that completely unnecessary 11pm message, will probably call us back.
Anyway, Call Me Back is for those women.
And, perhaps, for the women we are becoming ourselves.