Jane Caro's The Mother a gripping domestic noir thriller

In late February, papers presented at the National Research Conference on Violence Against Women challenged the stereotypes of domestic violence, looked at how separation was the most dangerous time, and how coercive control can escalate quickly.

Which all form the central theme of The Mother.

Miriam Duffy is a well-respected North Shore real estate agent, thrilled when her younger daughter Ally marries a "tall, handsome and charming" veterinarian. The newlyweds soon move to the country, withdrawing from contact, Ally becomes a shadow of her former self, and Miriam starts to worry. Soon it's more than worry. How far would she go to protect her daughter? How far would you go?

"All of the experts I spoke to when I was researching the book told me many times that domestic violence is not restricted to dysfunctional communities, or people who live chaotic and very difficult lives," says Caro. "To see this research come out validates that even more."

Caro hopes that by addressing the matter in fiction, it might make the terrible statistics more accessible.

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On average one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner; almost 10 women a day are hospitalised for assault injuries perpetrated by a spouse or domestic partner; and one in four Australian women have experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner since the age of 15.

"If we are reading about these things as non-fiction, while many people are alarmed and horrified ... a lot of people just don't want to read about it, don't want to think about it, don't get into it and that's an audience missed. They might read an article in the newspaper or watch a news story and that's it, they don't engage.

"My advertising background has told me that if you can engage your audience they will take in all sorts of information that they never, ever thought about, would have almost have actively avoided.

"One of the things I think fiction can do is take us out of judgment and into compassion because we travel with the characters in a book in our imagination, and therefore we feel what they feel, fear what they fear, struggle with the same dilemmas that they struggle with ... that's why storytelling has always been one of the best and most effective ways to communicate with people and get them to notice."

While the major act of physical violence in the book is part of the twist, Caro delves deeply into the idea of coercive control.

Defined as an ongoing pattern of perpetrator behaviours which may include physical, sexual, psychological, financial and emotional abuse and intimidation, its used by a perpetrator to gain power, control and dominance over the victim.

It can include anything from verbal threats and assault, to restraint of movement, isolating a victim from family and supports, sexual assault or threats to children.

Again, all of these issues appear in the pages of The Mother.

"Coercive control is not normal, it's not love, and too often we dress it up as love," Caro says.

"We still raise girls to believe that romantic love is the be all and end all of their life, and that there's a Mr Right waiting for them. There are no perfect men, indeed the more perfect they seem, the more suspicious you should be. Manipulative predators perfectly well understand the desire to be desired, if you like, and they manoeuver and manipulate that.

"People keep using the phrase 'swept off their feet', well, that's a terrible place to be, swept off your feet, talk about being vulnerable, unstable and defenseless. We need to keep our feet on the ground."

Caro has published 12 books, from her most recent non-fiction Accidental Feminists, to a young adult trilogy about the life of Elizabeth Tudor. The Mother is her first novel for adults.

"What I didn't realise until I finished The Mother is that all of my fiction is basically around the same core theme - women taking back the power, refusing to give up their power," she says.

"In a way, it's a metaphor for what is going on in the world at the moment, that, in big ways, in small ways, women really, for the first time in history, are refusing to let go of their power in ways that they were just expected to do in the past.

"Grace Tame giving Scott Morrison that side-eye, refusing to smile at him, shocked so many people and exhilarated so many others, because it was exactly emblematic of that refusal to play nice and compromise and give into the man who has undermined you."

Are we on the cusp of a change?

"Big shifts have to come, just look at where we're at in the world right now, the climate, the floods, the pandemic, war in Ukraine, Putin rattling nuclear sabres, it's something every day.

"We have to change and women are stepping up and saying things have to change."

Caro has long been a vocal and outspoken critic of governments and policymaking and recently announced she would run for a NSW Senate seat with the Reason Party in the coming federal election.

"I just looked at the world, and I looked at my grandchildren, and I thought if I have any currency I've got to spend it now. Because things are just disastrous and we cannot go on doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. It's the definition of insanity. The whole world is being gaslighted. We have to break that horrible downward spiral we are in."