A Book of Doors

Queensland writer Anne Richards captures a period of Queensland's revolutionary change, a half century ago, in her memoir A Book of Doors. A personal account of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, this is also a tale of young love found and lost, with a background of Brisbane's radical social, political, and cultural upheavals during the early 1970s. Recently published by boutique Brisbane publisher AndAlso Books, A Book of Doors describes a very different Brisbane to now -- ruled by a reactionary government and seething with barely repressed outrage and voices calling for radical cultural change.
Richards, thrown out of home by her conservative father for attending an anti-Vietnam war protest, first sleeps in the library and in lecture rooms at the University of Queensland, before moving through various doors - hence the book's title - in communal share houses across Brisbane. The Special Branch police were never far away, listening to phone calls and watching their houses, but Richards and her companions lived bravely, rebelling against many paradigms: against conscription and the war in Vietnam; against racism at home and abroad, including Apartheid; against sexism and patriarchy; against consumerism and political apathy.
Older readers will remember the times; younger readers, possibly empathising with their own social justice protests, will empathise with Richards, as she attends demonstrations and enjoys political debate as a regular part of life. A Book of Doors is told over a particular time capsule: a few years during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Significant events in the state's history come to life through young Richard's eyes, including the violent attacks of police on peaceful protestors during the Springbok tour of 1971, the founding of the Queensland branch of the Black Panther party, the anti-racism conference at UQ in 1972, and Nimbin's Aquarius Festival in 1973.