The family by Chris Johnston and Rosie Jones: 2 March, 2017

Drawing on police files, diary entries, recordings of cult-leader Anne Hamilton-Byrn, and original interviews with survivors and investigators, The Family goes inside one of the most bizarre cults in modern history to expose its strange and shocking story.

Chris Johnston is a senior writer for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, based in Melbourne. He has been covering developments related to the Family for several years. Rosie Jones is an award-winning writer, director and editor. Her most recent feature documentary, The family, premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July 2016.

Chris Johnston and Rose Jones will join us for a Q&A on Thursday, 2 March between 8 and 9pm. Please leave any questions you have below. (And discuss the book at your leisure!)

Want to buy The family? Receive 10% off when purchasing it from Readings at State Library Victoria. To receive the discount online, enter the promo code BOOKCLUB in the promo code box during online checkout. To receive the discount at our State Library bookshop, simply mention the Thursday night book club at the counter.

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Hi Chris and Rosie, thanks for the Q&A. I have two questions for you.

Did you come across anything you found particularly surprising during your research? I imagine you go into this kind of story expected a certain level of shocking details but did anything go beyond that?

And how do you about writing about this kind of story and keep it believable? Where there any parts of the narrative you looked at and thought "Okay, no matter how we present this, readers won't buy it"?

Thanks!

I still find it hard to believe that a cult could own a psychiatric hospital and within that hospital were 3 cult psychiatrists who had licenses to use LSD on patients - and one of them was liberating the LSD and taking it up to the Dandenongs for cult use.

I wAs surprised that the abuse of the children was so extreme and that the peole who perpetrated it were so 'normal'. An interesting insight into human nature!

As far as keeping it believable - we knew it all to be true! We wanted the readers to trust that.

@ Chris

Okay that's astonishing. A genius idea on their part. But astonishing.

@ Rosie

Hm, yeah, that's unsettling. Life's so much easier when you can just pretend that the people who do that kind of thing are mental or emotional outliers.

But I guess one of the points of great non-fiction is to break down those assumptions, eh?

Thanks for the answers.