The Green Bell – Paula Keogh

In 1972 in Canberra, Michael Dransfield is being treated for a drug addiction. Paula Keogh has suffered a breakdown. They meet in the psychiatric ward of the Canberra Hospital and instantly fall in love.

Paula recovers a self she thought she had lost while Michael is caught up in a rush of creative energy and writes the poems that become The Second Month of Spring. Together, they commit to ‘living life as a poem’ and plan for ‘a wedding, marriage, kids – the whole trip’.

Once outside the hospital, madness and grief challenge their luminous dream. For them, the question becomes, can their love survive?

The Green Bell is a lyrical and profoundly moving story about love and madness. It explores the ways extreme experience can change us: expose our terrors and open us to ecstasy for the sake of a truer life, a reconciliation with who we are.

Ultimately, this memoir reveals itself to be a hymn to life. A requiem for lost friends. A coming of age story that takes a lifetime.