A Dark Quilt. "The Thirteenth Night: A Mother's Story of the Life and Death of her Son" by Jan McNess and "Something More Wonderful: A True Story by Sonia Orchard" by Sonia Orchard. [review]

Abstract

On the night of 13 September 1993, flight lieutenants Jeremy McNess and Mark Cairns-Cowan were killed when their F-111 crashed at Guyra, in northern NSW. Written by Jeremy’s mother, "The Thirteenth Night" dwells on the complex fatality of that night, which permanently changed several life stories in an instant. For his mother, who had coped with his exceptionally difficult childhood, winning through in his early teens to a remarkably close relationship, Jeremy's death was and remains a dark frontier. Beyond lay a strange and cold country. If Jan McNess found little real support or consolation in a culture that attempts to repress death and grief, lamenting that she was unable to paint her face black to show her deep sorrow, Sonia Orchard has surmounted these cultural barriers. "Something More Wonderful" is the story of her experience as witness to the suffering and death of her greatest friend, Emma Burdekin.