Gabrielle Carey, best known for co-authoring the iconic teen novel Puberty Blues, has died suddenly at the age of 64.
It comes just months after she wrote a harrowing article about mental health for Fairfax in which she noted her terror of turning 64, after her father died of suicide at the same age.
Carey described being squeezed by a range of economic pressures impacting thousands of older women in Australia, including having to sell her house in a falling market and the “real danger that my super would run out before the pension kicked in at 67”.
She spoke bravely about the grip of depression, being hospitalised and her constant battle against feelings of regret.
Tributes have flowed in for Carey in the hours since the sad news broke, with old friend and co-author of Puberty Blues, Kathy Lette reminiscing about the pair’s “halcyon, heady days” together.
“We made some mischief and broke some barriers by writing Puberty Blues – our raw, earthy take on the brutal treatment of young women in the Australian surfing scene which is sadly, still so relevant” Lette wrote.
Carey would write nine more books after Puberty Blueswith future success. Her 1984 book Just Us, was an account of her real-life relationship with a prisoner at Paramatta Jail and was adapted into a telemovie in 1986.
Geordie Williamson, The Australian’s chief literary critic, described Carey’s death as cruel.
“Her life has been cut short, cruelly. In other cultures an author of Gabrielle Carey’s gifts would have been widely feted. Instead, like so many Australian writers before her, she laboured for decades in relative anonymity and with only scant support,” he said.
Carey is survived by a son and daughter.
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