Ten Hail Marys

In Ten Hail Marys, Kate Howarth vividly recalls the first seventeen years of her life in Sydney's slums, suburbs and rural New South Wales, Australia.

Abandoned by her mother as a baby, and then by her volatile grandmother. Kate was 14 when she was sent to live with a neighbour, who barely tolerated her. Kate was taken out of school three days before she was scheduled to take the exams for the Intermediate Certificate, the minimum education required to obtain meaningful employment.

At 15, everything and everyone Kate called family and home was gone.

In January 1966, Kate gave birth to a healthy baby boy at St. Margaret's Home for unwed mothers in Sydney. In the months before and the days after the birth, she resisted treatment that had been deemed tantamount to torture when she steadfastly refused to sign the consent for adoption.

Kate's son, whom she called Adam, was the only family she had left. If they were going to take him, they would have to do so without her consent.

Of the thousands of unwed mothers at the time, Kate became the only unwed mother who could be found who left the institution with her baby. She was only sixteen years old. What inspired such courage and determination?

Ten Hail Marys is a frank, at times funny and incredibly moving true story, told without an ounce of bitterness or self-pity.

More than a memoir of Kate's life struggles, Ten Hail Marys blew the whistle on one of the darkest chapters in Australian social history.

Following publication in 2010, Ten Hail Marys was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous writing and won the Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2010 in an open category.

In 2011, Kate gave evidence to the National Senate Inquiry into what is now known as Forced Adoption Practices, which led to changes in adoption laws.