A House Divided by Clare Hallifax

Title: A House Divided

Author: Clare Hallifax

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Walker Books Australia

Published: 1^st August 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 288

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: In a crisis, take a stand … A coming-of-age story, set against the Dismissal of the government in 1975 as battle lines are drawn, democracy is on the edge, and all of it is far too close to home.

When another national crisis puts Juliet’s family beach trip on hold, Juliet is disappointed, but not surprised. When your dad has a key job in the federal government, even faraway crises hit close to home, and change is the only constant. It’s 1975 and Juliet has a lot to look forward to. It’s the last year of primary school, wrongs are being set right, and there’s new attitudes, new opportunities … as well as new friends. But as Juliet gets to know more about the people around her and the times that shape her, there are plenty of surprises still in store.

But politics is casting a long shadow over the country, and it seems nothing can save Juliet, her family, and her friendships, from the biggest crisis of all.

~*~

It’s 1975, and Juliet is entering her last year of primary school in Canberra, where things have been tense since the end of 1974. As Juliet’s summer after year five begins, Cyclone Tracy hits Darwin, and things start changing. Her father works in the Whitlam government, and is often called away to deal with government crises that start hitting too close to home. Jules’s best friend Ness, is away, and during the summer she meets Robbie McLennan, who goes to the local public school.  1975’s only constant is change. Changing friendships, changing politics, changing family situations and constantly changing social mores and norms that see three generations of women – Gran, mum, and Juliet and her sister, feeling at odds sometimes.

Juliet has to work on a year-long project about Australia – anything about Australia, and she’s interested in what is happening during 1975. Charting the news, music, events and people’s reactions throughout the year highlight something to Juliet – that nothing is ever really safe from change. Nobody is ever going to remain the same forever.

Growing up means learning that things change, that tiny things can make friends think something is wrong, and show that when things are in flux, when things are constantly changing, listening to people is key. Not everyone in this novel always agrees with each other nor do they share the same beliefs. Gran has distinct ideas about marriage and divorce that the modern girls – mum, Juliet, Bridget, and Meg – disagree with. They’re advocating for freedom, and Gran is all about tradition.

Amidst all the drama of life, Juliet’s collections in her notebook show the changing tides and opinions of the year, and the headlines examine the media responses to what was going on. The echoes of Vietnam are still present, and the role of protests reverberates throughout. It’s all about learning that everyone has different backgrounds, opinions, and understandings of the world, and that you can still be good friends with people who are on opposite sides of politics, or who see the world differently. It’s about standing up for your beliefs and being able to discuss them as well as finding a middle ground and commonalities in other areas of life. The time this book is set in was a time of free education, equal rights for women and Indigenous people, and the end of Vietnam, as well as many other social changes that were ushered in.

Using 1975 and the constant changes to show how this works was a good idea, and reflects the role politics will always play in our lives. As Clare says in her author’s note, the Whitlam government is the only Australian government that has been dismissed by the Governor-General throughout Australian history. Could it happen again? Perhaps, but what would it take? What would need to happen for this to happen? What is important is that this book shows that things aren’t always as simple as basic rundowns of history give us. That there was probably a lot of things going on behind the scenes that people would not have known at the time, and that some people still might not know about. History is complex, and because we often only hear from the winners, the ones with power to write history, what we know can be skewed by those narratives.

Through all the ups and downs of the novel, Juliet, Ness and Robbie are navigating a world where everything is changing and where Australia is moving into a modern age during the second half of the twentieth century. It’s a novel for curious readers, and one that shows how social changes in the 1970s have informed what has changed in Australia during the last 50 years as well. The friendships are what make this novel so powerful for me, and it will be a great learning tool to show children what life was like before technology became ubiquitous. When people only had one TV, one landline, and where seeing people in person was more common. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, because it did allow for the nuances to be examined, and for people to understand that everyone has different beliefs – and that nobody is ever always right.