Towards the end of his first serious suicide attempts, my father said the strangest thing to me...

Growing up in 1970s Sydney, Tim Elliott had a loving stay-at-home mum, a professional father, three siblings, a private school education and endless opportunities to fish and surf at the nearby beaches.

But this was not the idyllic childhood it appeared. A charismatic, well-respected doctor by day, Tim's father became a roaring madman at night.

The house was our castle, and Dad was our king. He was an unpredictable king, tyrannous and moody, lethal one day, loving the next.

This is an extraordinary memoir of growing up with a parent afflicted by mental illness: a complex elegy, powerfully told, loaded with love, rage and surprising humour. It is about the lengths children will go to protect themselves - and their families - from shame or harm, and how adapting to that adversity becomes and intractable part of who we are as adults.

"Tim Elliott's story - on his father and love against the odds - will split your heart open." - Benjamin Law

About the Author
Tim Elliott is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review, London's Financial Times and Sunday Times. His book, Farewell to the Father, first arose from an article of the same name in The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine. The article generated one of the largest reader responses in the paper's history.