GEORGIA ROSE PHILLIPS The Bearcat. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey

Phillips’ debut novel fictionalises the early life of Anne Hamilton Byrne, the real-life leader of the notorious Australian cult The Family.

Anne Hamilton Byrne invented her own philosophy, attracted adherents, and wielded spiritual power over them. She claimed to be – and believed she was – the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. She administered hallucinogenic drugs to adults and children to convince acolytes and new recruits of her power. Anne used personal information from these sessions to control her followers’ lives. Money to fund her work and lavish lifestyle came from offerings, from followers signing over assets, from divorce settlements, and people leaving her money in their wills.

The term ‘bearcat’ has several meanings: a large, tree-dwelling mammal, and 1920s slang for a fiery girl or woman. In Georgia Rose Phillips’ novel, Ralph, Anne’s father, uses it at times to refer to his daughter:

Ralph stumbled through the door in the early hours of the morning. Turned on all the lights, waking them both. Florence opened her eyes to Ralph drunkenly undressing beside the bed in sharp luminescence.

The bearcat is always crying, he spat, like he was the only one who could hear it.

Anne’s life is seen from several points of view – one is the detective in charge of the investigation of The Family, who interviews former followers; others show Anne at boarding school, during her first and third marriages, and at the end of her life.

However, the novel is most invested in exploring the life of the young Evelyn, before she changed her name to Anne. Her father, Ralph, is Australian, and lost his first wife, Minnie, and their baby in childbirth. He meets Florence in England and, after a quick courtship, brings her back to Australia to set up home in Sale, rural Victoria, where he works on the railways. Florence is the homemaker, socially and economically isolated, homesick for family and England and finding herself living with a reserved, emotionally absent and increasingly alcoholic husband. The book focusses on Florence’s struggles with her first child, Evelyn, who spends a lot of time crying.

… the longer Evelyn cried, the more loosely tethered Florence’s patience became. There are good things in the world, she whispered, as she pressed Evelyn’s red snotty face into her chest … and the more Evelyn cried, the more Florence started to wonder, as she stood there, and held her — and failed to console her — whether there was a wound at the centre of her child. Some great pain in her core.

In real life, there were eight children in the family and Florence spent time in mental institutions. In the novel, Florence struggles with the burden of being the sole carer of a young child. Evelyn is sent away to boarding school, where she is an outcast. Ralph often forgets to pick her up to return home for school holidays. But he does come to collect her three days before her final exams so that she can become the new homemaker in Florence’s absence.

Anne moved past piles of laundry as tall as her in the hallway towards the outer rooms … Write me a list, Ralph said, when they both returned to the kitchen … There were piles of plates precariously balanced in the sink.

Anne’s disjointed upbringing – an exhausted, unwell mother, an absent, uncaring father – combines with her frustration and insecurity, of being unwanted and rageful, and translates into her leaving home early. She lives independently for a while, marries a rich man that she is deeply in love with, becomes used to living well. They have a daughter together. Then her husband is killed in an accident on his way to collect a young boy they have decided to adopt, which brings up all the old feelings of being abandoned, unloved, and desperately needing a family, while at the same time, she neglects her daughter and has no contact with her own family.

All this detail sets up how, through fright, frustration, lack, loss and tragedy, Anne Hamilton Byrne could establish herself as someone of influence. She uses her yoga classes to build a base of admirers and followers.

Anne found herself somewhere in the middle of the class. Bending, stretching and reaching into a new depth of herself amongst the blur of bodies mimicking and following … At the conclusion of class, Anne stood in front of her mat as the women swarmed … As Anne stood there and handed out answers and advice, she had a moment of recognition. A sense of realising she had fulfilled a promise she had made to her younger self: she had crossed to the centre of life. Become a midpoint between people. She no longer occupied the outer fringes.

Over two decades, The Family, as the group became known, expanded rapidly.

She had Family scattered through the police force, hospitals, public service and universities. Social workers, nurses, doctors, academics, psychiatrists, lawyers – she was on her own High Renaissance, Anne thought, admiring her life’s work spread out before her.

Even this is not enough for Anne. She sets up a house on five acres at Lake Eildon in Victoria and, believing that children are the future of The Family, kidnaps children and locks them into a strict regime. Some she takes from Family members, who hand them over; she takes babies from hospitals and forges their birth papers. Aunties take care of them under a strict regime Anne has outlined that includes the children being locked in cupboards, beaten and starved. They are dressed in matching clothes, have their hair bleached white and are considered the natural children of Anne and her husband, Bill.

Anne and Bill are arrested in America in 1993 on charges of child abuse and brought back to Melbourne to face charges of conspiracy to defraud and commit perjury by registering the births of three unrelated children as their own triplets. They are fined $5000 each and, as part of the extradition agreement, they are not charged with any other criminal abuse.

By 2017, Bill is dead and Anne is in an institution with dementia. She still has a few supporters who keep in touch with her and look after her affairs.

The book arouses sadness, disgust, fascination, curiosity and anger. It is an intriguing look at the life of a woman who wielded enormous control over a group of people for many years. The central question it seems to ask is what makes a cult leader. Is it nature or nurture? The author has a bet each way: Florence was a doormat, and from birth Evelyn is portrayed as emotionally abandoned. We get a lot on Evelyn’s birth and early life, the relationship between Florence and Ralph, plus some asides about what Evelyn was trying to convey to her parents through her crying and rages, even implying her Messiah complex began while she clung to the side of her cot.

The descriptions of the child-rearing practices of the time seem brutal today – leaving the child alone in a room for hours, except for feeding, not comforting the child when it is upset, blaming the child for being upset. Attributing blame to an angry baby seems harsh, but it was the practice of the day and children were raised this way probably until well into the 1970s, and not everyone has turned out to be a cult leader. So, at the end of the novel the question remains: what did set Anne Hamilton Byrne apart?

Georgia Rose Phillips The Bearcat Picador 2025 PB 320pp $34.99

Linda Godfrey is a writer, poet and editor. She lives on Dharawal Country.

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Tags: Anne Hamilton Byrne, Austalian authors, Australian fiction, child abuse, cults, fraud, Georgia Rose | Phillips, the Family