The stalwart of Australian publishing became a household name for books like Up the Duff: The Real Guide to Pregnancy, Girl Stuff, Babies and Toddlers and It's the Menopause.
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It → become → Pregnancy
But Cooke has recently published works such as You're Doing It Wrong, which looks at historically terrible advice for women about health and behaviour.
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which → publish → health
Her new one takes on the long history of magic and mediumship, especially the spiritualism movement of the late 19th century, through the lens of under-reported lives of the women — all with trademark wit.
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one → take → wit
From Lady Conan Doyle, wife of the famous Arthur, to the thriving mediumship scene of 1800s Melbourne, Cooke gives texture and context to the stories of women who used magic and vibes to make themselves rich and famous.
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themselves → thrive → magic
You're best known for helping women with books about pregnancy, birth and child-rearing.
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You → know → pregnancy
What inspired you to write about spooky ladies?
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What → inspire → ladies
Well, over the last few years, I have found that an archive is my happy place.
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archive → find → years
And I have loved looking at women who are no longer with us, who might have been forgotten or erased by history in some way, or misunderstood.
uncertain
who → love → way
I became fascinated by the idea that there was a gender divide often between magicians and mediums.
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I → become → magicians
And then I realised, oh no, there were heaps of women magicians.
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I → realise → magicians
They just didn't get written about.
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They → write → ?
And a lot of the famous wives, like Mrs Houdini, Bess, were just always kind of presumed to be timid or to be decorative by the male biographers of the magicians.
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lot → presume → magicians
It's fascinating to me too that a lot of these women, they were opportunistic and they were frauds and they were incredibly talented at the acts they did.
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they → do → acts
The story of Lady Conan Doyle is one of the most interesting in the book and it seems you did not love her.
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you → seem → her
She and Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) and their social milieu intersected so much with 20th-century history.
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She → intersect → history
What did you learn there?
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you → learn → What
I really loved Sherlock Holmes as a big kid.
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I → love → kid
So, I had not realised, like a lot of people, what an extraordinarily dim man he was and how he was a con man who didn't know he was a con man.
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he → realise → people
The way that his second wife Lady Conan Doyle has been written about before is that she was this marvellous English rose, you know, with fine upstanding morals.
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you → write → morals
But she was just a dreadful woman manipulating her husband by pretending to be a medium and doing the easiest version of mediuming that she could, which was automatic writing.
uncertain
which → manipulate → mediuming
Spiritualism was appealing to lots of people.
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Spiritualism → appeal → people
I think all these women I've written about are emblematic of their times.
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I → think → times
Spiritualism started out as a girlish prank and then became a religion, and I think that's got a lot to do with people wanting to believe that we can communicate with people who have died.
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who → start → people
So, they were discovering things that you couldn't see, like magnetism and electricity.
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you → discover → magnetism
People kind of wanted to believe that maybe there was this whole spirit world that we couldn't see.
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we → want → that
A lot of people were just trying to make money and were just frauds.
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lot → try → money
But a lot of it had to do with the idea of women being ethereal and not very clever, so the spirits would kind of use them just as a conduit.
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spirits → have → conduit
That's a theme in your work I suppose.
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I → suppose → work
You just get treated like a very large test tube.
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You → treat → tube
One other thing about younger women dashing about in the drawing room after dark is that it's fun.
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it → dash → dark
I think it was entertainment.
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it → think → ?
People didn't have streaming services.
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People → have → services
They used it to survive.
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They → use → it
And what I realised was just how much, along with all the glamour, there was just so much grit and determination.
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realised → realise → glamour
They had no pensions, no health care, very often carrying the act if they were a magician, but just being dismissed as, you know, a bit of fluff on the side.
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you → have → side
Tell me about the research you did for this book.
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you → tell → book
I got to go to Texas in between the two Trump presidencies, to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin for a couple of weeks.
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I → get → weeks
They have a collection there of his magic files on other magicians.
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They → have → magicians
So aside from obeying the sign that said I wasn't allowed to leave my handgun in the locker, I was in absolute heaven.
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I → obey → heaven
For example, I found the original love notes that Harry Houdini would leave on the pillow for Bess.
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Houdini → find → Bess
…and 20 more, not listed.
The Aporia