Bittersweet (McCullough)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 1, 1937
• Where—Wellington, New South Wales, Australia
• Education—Holy Cross College (Australia); M.D., University of Sydney
• Currently—lives on Norfolk Island in the Pacific


Colleen McCullough-Robinson is an Australian author and medical researcher, best-known for her 1977 novel (and subsequent mini-series) The Thorn Birds.

McCullough was born in Wellington in 1937, in the outback of central west New South Wales. Her father was James McCullough and her mother Laurie was a New Zealander of part-Maori descent. During her childhood, McCullough's family moved around a great deal, eventually settling in Sydney, where she attended Holy Cross college.

After stint as a teacher, librarian, and journalist, she enrolled at the University of Sydney to study medicine. Iin her first year, however, she suffered dermatitis from surgical soap and was advised to abandon her dreams of becoming a medical doctor—she could never scrub for surgery. Instead, she switched to neuroscience and worked in Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, where she established the department of neurophysiology.

In 1963 McCullough moved to the United Kingdom for four years. While at the Great Ormond Street hospital in London, she met Yale University's chairman of neurology, who offered her a research associate job. She accepted and spent the next ten years (till 1976) at Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, researching and teaching. At Yale she penned her first two books.

The success of these books enabled her to give up her medical-scientific career and to try and "live on her own terms" In the late 1970s, she finally settled on the isolation of Norfolk Island in the Pacific. There she met her husband, Ric Robinson, whom she married on in 1983 at the age of 46 (Robinson was 33).

Recognition
In 1984 a portrait of Colleen McCullough, painted by Wesley Walters, was a finalist for the Archibald Prize, awarded for the "best portrait painting preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics."

In 1993 she was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree by Macquarie University for the depth of historical research in her novels of ancient Rome.

McCullough is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Controversy
Her 2008 novel The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet engendered controversy with her reworking of characters in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Susannah Fullerton, the president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, said she "shuddered" that Elizabeth Bennet was rewritten as weak, and Mr. Darcy as savage.

She is one of the strongest, liveliest heroines in literature … [and] Darcy's generosity of spirit and nobility of character make her fall in love with him—why should those essential traits in both of them change in 20 years?

Bibliograhy
Novels (stand-alones):
Tim (1974) ♦ The Thorn Birds (1977) ♦ An Indecent Obsession (1981) ♦ A Creed for the Third Millennium (1985) ♦ The Ladies of Missalonghi (1987) ♦ The Song of Troy (1998) ♦ Morgan's Run (2000) ♦ The Touch (2003) ♦ Angel Puss (2004) ♦ The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet (2008) ♦ Bittersweet (2013).

Masters of Rome series
The First Man in Rome (1990) ♦ The Grass Crown (1991) ♦ Fortune's Favorites (1993) ♦ Caesar's Women (1996) ♦ Caesar (1997) ♦ The October Horse (2002) ♦ Antony and Cleopatra (2007).

Carmine Delmonico series
On, Off (2006) ♦ Too Many Murders (December 2009) ♦ Naked Cruelty (2010) ♦ The Prodigal Son (2012) ♦ Sins of the Flesh (2013). (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/8/2015.)