Contrite Hearts

In the Eighties when `greed was good' and `self indulgence the name of the game' whatever happened to contrite hearts? The story women of this decade do not tell. Three women, three separate lifestyles but one aspiration to find love and meaning when self indulgence dominated. Susie has hardened her heart, Melissa wears hers on her sleeve and Kate follows all the rules, but each is finding the eighties tests their boundaries. As the friendship grows between these very different women their lives change in unexpected ways and they find love is not always what is expected.

This book Contrite Hearts was written in the eighties and reflects the atmosphere and boundaries of that decade, no aids, mobile phones or computers and the dominance of corporate power and aspiration. Many women brought up in the sixties and seventies were torn. They had been instilled with values and dreams based on social mores which the easy availability of the pill had well and truly shattered. An atmosphere of self indulgence dominated and yet women had not been fully liberated. Germaine Greer had just published `The Female Eunuch' but the male sense of self entitlement was still a dominant force particularly in the work place.

Yet the eighties has influenced the lives of so many women of today. Susie, Melissa and Kate are these women and their story is the story so many women of this decade have not told.