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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How did you verify all the info you used in the book? Seems like some of it would've been hard to verify given the circumstances. :-/

We took hreat care to make sure that our 'facts' were correct but often we are telling the story through memories, and they are notoriously unreliable. That's why I wanted to tell the story through multiple perspectives.

We came across many things that we could not prove. Only things we could prove or we knew to be true via documents or other primary sources were used.