“Annette Trevitt, in her non-fiction work I Had a Father in Karratha (Upswell), tells how she devoted two and a half years of her life to cleaning up the financial mess that her bolter of a father, whom she loved, left behind him in the Pilbara when he died: an endearingly gritty, furious tale of family redemption, and my favourite of the year.” Helen Garner (in Best Reads of 2023. SMH/The Age 8 December 2023) “I Had a Father in Karratha is a forceful memoir about losing a loved one, and while that subject matter is not unique, this book feels singular.” Kealy Siryj, Readings website. About the Book: What happens when your father dies and he’s in the Pilbara, 4,500 kms away? What happens when your father dies and you fly across to lay him to rest and find his estate is a spectacular mess of hoarded junk, bank debts, lost paperwork and rundown properties in a mining town gone bust? What happens when your father dies and you are the oldest child and the sole executor of his will? I Had a Father in Karratha tracks Annette Trevitt’s two-and-a-half-year epic undertaking of cleaning up her father’s mess in Karratha, Western Australia. A fly-in fly-out marathon as she holds together her life with her teenage son in Melbourne. Written in passages of reflective prose and text messages, what unfolds is an intimate story of being a daughter of a runaway father – a father who bolted when the going got tough. Trevitt’s attention to reality is as relentless as the paperwork, the corporate sloth and greed she faces at every turn. Nothing is straightforward other than the humour and openness she brings to every absurd and maddening situation from one end of the country to the other. This is a story of commitment, responsibility, doggedness and love. A legacy of an eldest daughter’s determination to honour her father and lay him to rest. About the Author: Annette Trevitt is a short story writer and tertiary teacher. She grew up in small country towns in NSW. She lived in Sydney and London before moving to Melbourne to do a Graduate Diploma in Animation at VCA. Her short stories have been published in literary journals including Salt, Griffith Review, Australian Best Stories, Ireland’s Fish Anthology and broadcast on the BBC and the ABC. For 15 years she taught short fiction, novel writing and screenwriting in professional writing and editing courses. She teaches academic communication skills to students entering university. She lives with her teenage son and their dog.