A churlish obituary for much-loved Australian author Colleen McCullough has attracted scorn on social media, spurring users to speculate on how their own life’s achievements might be backhandedly remembered.
In Friday’s edition of the Australian, the bestselling author of The Thorn Birds – which sold 30m copies worldwide – is remembered as “plain of feature, and certainly overweight, [but] nevertheless a woman of wit and warmth” in the first paragraph.
McCullough wrote 25 novels throughout her career, with her last book Bittersweet published in 2013.
Before becoming a bestselling author, she established the neurophysiology department at the Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney. She also spent a decade as a researcher at Yale medical school in the US.
And yet the Australian’s obituary concluded its first paragraph with a quote from McCullough: “I’ve never been into clothes or figure and the interesting thing is I never had any trouble attracting men.”
It was received with distaste on Twitter, prompting users to imagine how their own lives might be remembered by the Australian.
My @Australian obit: "Susan, who had an unattractive pointy nose & crooked teeth, was nevertheless a fiction writer of books.."
— Susan Johnson (@sjreaders) January 30, 2015
She was too female for a cartoonist. #myozobituary
— Sir Madame Wilcox (@cathywilcox1) January 30, 2015
He had a great face for radio. #myozobituary
— Mark Colvin (@Colvinius) January 30, 2015
Despite being an overweight homosexual with no fashion sense, he was nonetheless a moderately successful arts journalist. #myozobituary
— Richard Watts (@richardthewatts) January 30, 2015
Short & dumpy with an extra chin, she nevertheless wrote books novels & articles & was occasionally allowed 2 appear on telly #myozobituary
— Jane Caro (@JaneCaro) January 30, 2015
She was short, ethnic and had a voice that carried. Despite this, she managed to finish university. #myozobituary
— Bhakthi (@bhakthi) January 30, 2015
McCullough died aged 77 in hospital on Norfolk Island on Thursday afternoon, after suffering a string of health problems.
Her publisher, HarperCollins Australia, praised her as one of the first Australian authors to succeed on the world stage.
“The world is a less colourful place without Col,” its publishing director Shona Martyn said.
According to Crikey, the obituary was written some years ago by a male obituary writer who has since died himself.
Despite being a small-minded, insular twerp, he found employment as a small-minded insular obituary writing twerp #myozobituary
— Ruth Callaghan (@RuthViragoMedia) January 30, 2015
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