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One hundred years of Betty

Oswald, Debra2025

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Summary

Meet Betty: storyteller, feminist, eternally curious and phenomenally old. On the eve of her hundredth birthday party, Betty tells us her story. Born into poverty in pre-war London, and growing up fast during the Blitz, Betty grabs the chance at a bigger life by migrating to Australia. On board the SS Asturias she meets three people who will influence the course of her life-Pearl, a good-hearted party girl; Athena, a Greek woman on her way to marry a man she has never met; and Leo, a German Jew who lost his family in the war. In Sydney, Betty is making ends meet as a waitress at the famous Trocadero dance hall when she stumbles into a rushed courtship with Donald, a wealthy businessman, and dedicates herself to being the ideal 1950s suburban housewife. But life has other plans for Betty, and soon she must find a way to do more than survive. Set against a century of world events and social upheavals, Betty takes us to the frontlines of the anti-war protests and the women's liberation movement of the 1970s, to the AIDS crisis during the 1980s, to Mexico and eventually becomes a TV screenwriter. Even in her nineties, Betty is still passionately engaged with the world, still surprising us.