It takes a writer to write a novel but a team to make a book. With thanks always to my fantastic team at Pan Macmillan, headed by my publisher Cate Paterson, and my super agent Tara Wynne from Curtis Brown.
The Making of Christina represents nine and a half years of my life. It has been written, rewritten, thrown out and started again. Thanks in particular to Danielle Walker and Julia Stiles for a rigorous structural and copy edit and helping it be the best story it could be.
However, along the way, many other people had a direct or indirect influence on shaping this version of the story. First of all, thanks to Wendy Harmer who said to show her the first two thousand words and then said keep writing.
To the crew at the Northern Beaches Writers Group for camaraderie, critique and encouragement in the early drafts. A massive thank you to Gillian Clive for her insights and indefatigable reading of many drafts. Ditto Susanna Freymark. A bet to finish the novel or pay for dinner certainly galvanised us both to finish our manuscripts! I owe literary agent Virginia Lloyd a huge debt of gratitude for proving a densely packed email of feedback on the first version. Thanks to her, I threw it out and rewrote the whole novel. (That was a good thing!)
To my friend and first reader, Catherine Szentkuti, who gave it a yes. To my friends Michelle Barraclough and Neeta Mody for putting up with me. And especially to Carol Baxter, non-fiction writer extraordinaire, for not only putting up with me but introducing me to Tara Wynne. You changed my life.
The Making of Christina could not have happened without tonnes of research. Unfortunately, I have been through three computers in the writing of this novel and have lost many of the bookmarks et cetera that formed the factual basis for the novel. Well before the Child Sex Abuse Royal Commission was established in 2013, there were, and remain, numerous professionals in the judicial system, the police force, the law, medicine, community services and academia, working hard to reform how cases of sexual abuse are dealt with in the courts. Their aim is to improve both the experience and the outcomes for victims, especially vulnerable victims, such as children.
These include, but are not limited to, the work of the Australian Law Reform Commission and various state-based judicial reform groups. The work of Dr Anne Cossins was particularly valuable, including The Hearsay Rule and Delayed Complaints of Child Sexual Abuse: The Law and the Evidence (2002) and the multi-disciplinary report written by Dr Cossins, Report of the National Child Sexual Assault Reform Committee (2010). But there were many, many more papers that added to my understanding of this complex realm of predatory sexual behaviour, the psychology of narcissism, forensic evidence and the way these crimes go on undetected and under reported. It goes without saying that all the technical mistakes are mine and mine alone. Creative license has ruled over reality in certain aspects, such as the timeline of the case.
Last but by no means least, thank you to my husband Paul and my children for years of faith and gentle nudging. Being surrounded by a loving family is the perfect antidote to writing a novel on such a difficult subject.
To you the reader, thank you so much for picking up this book. Readers are the lifeline of writers. Your generous support does not go unnoticed.