On 13 April, 2015, at the State Library of New South Wales, Noel Pearson launched The Australian Declaration of Recognition, a pamphlet by Freeman and Julian Leeser, and Uphold & Recognise, a new organization committed to upholding the Australian Constitution and recognising indigenous Australians.
Reviewing The Aunt’s Mirrors for the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, Hilary Rubinstein writes that the book is “an exceedingly interesting and intelligent family history, felicitously told through the literary device of objects reflected in the mirrors… The book exemplifies family history at its best and most enlightening.”
On Anzac Day, 2015, The Weekend Australian carried an article about Freeman and Leeser’s work on The Australian Declaration of Recognition, and how their Jewish heritage, in particular, the ritual of the Seder service performed by Jews on the first night of the festival of Passover, informed the development of their thinking.
Steven Carroll writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that The Aunt’s Mirrors is “an embracing, even epic family history… the mirrors do their job and, along with meditations on memory and family, Freeman not only gives us a portrait of migrant colonial life from the gold rushes on, but also a homage to ‘ordinary’ life.”
Brandl & Schlesinger and Gleebooks invite you to afternoon tea at Govett’s Café, 25 Govetts Leap Road, Blackheath, at which novelist, poet and essayist, David Brooks will conduct a conversation with Brandl & Schlesinger’s authors, Damien Freeman (The Aunt’s Mirrors), Vrasidas Karalis (The Demons of Athens) and Kellinde Wrightson (The Notorious Frances Thwaites) on Saturday 16 May, 2015.