When I Am Sixty-Four

by Debra Adelaide

In this shimmering mosaic of a novel, a writer reflects on the final days of her friend’s life. In the decades after they met at school, they shared a passion for books and words, took care of each other’s children, received acclaim as authors, and endured failure and disappointment. Yet during these last days together, as she and her friend go on walks through their neighbourhood, she discovers that their paths may have been more different than she realised – and bridging the gulf becomes more vital than ever.

Based on Debra Adelaide’s friendship with Gabrielle Carey, When I Am Sixty-Four is a work of extraordinary depth and grace. Tender and moving, yet infused throughout with unexpected humour, it captures the human condition in all its complexity: the small but momentous events that can transform a life; the way cherished memories can be rewritten or expunged; the limitations of love, but also its necessity; and the exhilarating, unpredictable world of the creative imagination.

Genres: Australia, Memoir, Nonfiction, Death, Biography

125 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 31, 2026

About the author

Debra Adelaide has worked as a researcher, editor, and book reviewer, and has a PhD from the University of Sydney. She is presently a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she lives with her husband and three children.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debra_Ad...

Reviews

[Rosemary Atwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I knew she did not deliberately seek to copy him, but it was as if his fate had come prowling after hers, and at some point she stopped running, turned and faced it. I imagined this was her way of finding what she had always sought.’

When I read this, I am reminded of Jeff Buckley and the way in which a parent’s fate becomes eerily prescient - even complicit - in their offspring’s own demise.

Debra Adelaide’s elegant, compassionate tribute to Gabrielle Carey is a work of auto-fiction, a memoir of friendship, of the shared craft of writing and teaching and, in its final months, a desperate warding-off of the inevitable. Carey’s father committed suicide the day after his sixty-fourth birthday; Carey some four months after her own.

It certainly doesn’t feel like fiction in any form - and will hopefully find a new audience for both authors. A fine achievement.

[Jaclyn]

One of the most beautiful pieces of autofiction I have ever read. It will of course remind readers of Garner’s The Spare Room as it should but Adelaide’s account of her friendship with Gabrielle Carey and the depression that gripped her is something altogether its own. Just when I thought fiction couldn’t make me feel, this book saves me. Achingly tender and true at every turn.

[Alice Herley · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Shimmering mosaic” is a pretty accurate way to describe this book. It is a portrait of a troubled woman in her last few weeks on earth, narrated by her good friend. I think the most sad part was when you realise that sometimes love isn’t enough to save people. A captivating and beautiful read.

[Anna Loder · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a shimmering mosaic of a novel, the blurb here on goodreads is perfect. What a compassionate and exquisite tribute to a friend and friendship. It’s only a slim little book, but it certainly isn’t one I tore through; the deep depression, sadness and grief thot I found here was really eloquently described..but then so is the life changing friendship laughter and mole making

[Myrophora · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tribute to a friend who passed written as auto fiction. Provides an insight to mental health and how it impacts individuals and their loved ones. I really wanted a different outcome for the friend. The author honoured the friend by writing the novel. Thank you!

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gentle read full of considered thought and unravelled feelings. Some particular passages containing authorial in-jokes were obscurely niche.

[Helen Blunden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Video review to follow.

[Giles Tennant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful contemplation on friendship, grief and the march of time. The book is sneakily quick to finish, with each flash of memory leaving you wanting more.

[Patsy Bourke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very difficult book to review. It is described by the author as autofiction - a genre that is not so familiar to me. If I had not read about or listened to author and other interviews before and after reading the stunningly beautiful prose full of wonderful Australian bird analogies, it may have been hard to work out what it was about.

It would be also important to have some insider knowledge of which I have some, having read Puberty Blues not long after it's 1979 release. This provides understanding of who are 'my friend' Gabrielle Carey and my friend's friend, Kathy Lette and their teenage escapades as surfie chicks in the 1970s. Being a not dissimilar vintage to these three high school friends and Australian, though not part of a beach scene, also enables some cultural connection.

However, not having read other work by Gabrielle Carey or prior writings from Debra Adelaide, there was need to gain information from different sources to better understand this vignette of friendship over about 50 years; with lives that had both commonality and apartness. The grief is incorporated is brief paragraphs which move from observation of something in one timeline to another - which can be the nature of that beast - moveable and unpredictable.

In an interview on the ABC's Book Show on When I Am Sixty-Four, Debra Adelaide, she says this style of writing was deliberate. If it had been more memoir, it would have required much fact checking of dates/times etc, but this method allowed for better reflection and use of some imagination.

It could be easily read in one session in terms of length, but in terms of content, it seemed better to reflect whilst savouring the very well considered inclusions.

[Daniella · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

3.5

Absolutely spot on with the comparison with The Spare Room which was a surprise hit for me last year - blurring the lines between memoir and fiction in exploring the decline of a loved one and anticipatory grief. Also similar to The Spare Room it feels like the fiction label might be being used to skirt some trouble - with the subject of this novel being a public figure in her own right which raises some questions about whether she would like people reading about her decline.

I enjoyed the insight into their friendship as being founded on quality of time rather than amount of time, which made the decline especially painful as they could no longer find joy in shared memories or experiences. The protagonist realises she will be left to carry these memories alone, and that with her own passing the friendship will be completely gone from the world. It was also interesting to see her perspective shift on her friend's self-assuredness in her career, exposing a deep insecurity and coming at the expense of some personal relationships.

I wasn't familiar with the author or the friend before picking this up so I think holds appeal to fans as well as anyone looking for a meditation on grief and loss that doesn't take itself too seriously.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel feels like a memoir, a beautiful, heartfelt tribute to a deep friendship, and yet it’s also fiction, so it’s up to the reader to decide what is fact and what is not, and if it matters which is which. Written with such raw feeling and honesty, it’s about grief and helplessness and anger and all the things we feel when we love someone. And I think, ultimately, this is a book about life, and all its glorious messiness. Plus that stunning green cover with the perfect font & bin chicken (aka Sydney ibis) end papers - beautiful & hilarious.

[ariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

literally haunting

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only the most sublime writing will warrant a 5 star rating for a story as distressing as this.

[Kelleney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Described as a “shimmering mosaic of a novel”, I found this autofiction to be more of a disjointed collection of prose. The book is about the writer and the last few moments of her friend’s life, but I found most of it to be lacking pulse and insight. It was slow to start and slow to end, but I found the middle 50% to be engaging.

[Katya · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been a long time since I finished a book in about a day. This slim book is described as a ‘shimmering mosaic’, and I don’t think I can sum it up better than that.

[Alex Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75⭐️

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ebook. A hard book to score given the subject matter. I cannot help but compare with Helen Garner’s The Spare Room which has so much more depth. What struck me about both books was the authors’ anger. Anger that their friend died no doubt but I think also because they were not able to influence how they went. Which is as it should be but hard to accept no doubt when so intimately involved.

[Liane Flynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book read in one sitting. Interesting style of writing that I found to offer superficial engagement with the narrator despite the themes of grief and suicide being heavy.

[Heidi Hodder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t quite describe the feeling I had when I found out about this book the week before it was released. It was such a relief, almost like a feeling of coming home. When another of my favourite Australian writers (not a fan of his novels so much but loved his articles and blog posts) died there was a public outpouring of grief, a cover up of the details of death thanks to his media family, but no book by a best friend and it never felt quite right or real, I never got closure and now I knew that I would with Gabrielle.

Once purchased and begun, knowing I had this book to read was pure joy marred only by the bittersweet awareness that it couldn’t last long. I started off reading it slowly, a favourite writer writing about another one of my favourite writers, I didn’t want to rush. After the first page I had to stop. Not because I wasn’t captivated but because I’d fallen in love, not just with the words, I’d fallen in love with my own life.

I disagree with Debra that Gabrielle’s writing got better and better, although admittedly I still have much of her writing to read. The first book of hers I read was So Many Selves and I felt I’d found a kindred spirit. I was shocked when Only Happiness Here came out, that I’d forgotten about her for so long. Where on earth had those years gone? Partly it was due to mostly forbidding myself from reading for pleasure when my children were young. I felt I had to because I would become compulsive about it and neglect them and my other duties. Once I told my husband I was going to yoga on a Saturday morning and I went to the local shopping centre and read Shantaram for two hours.

I revelled in Carey’s contributions to Debra’s Mother Love books and the Penguin Book of the Dead. I enjoyed Only Happiness Here and told Gabrielle on twitter (to which she sent a lovely reply that unfortunately I can nolonger see as I deleted the account). But there was something sad about it, Moving Among Strangers and Waiting Room. It was only recently when I went to the State Library most days for a week or two to read Just Us that I felt that same affinity and exhilaration I had with So Many Selves. There was a naivete to it but much less than one would expect given she wrote it at such a young age. I cannot understand why it wasn’t more successful. That breaks my heart really, that and the fact that Gabrielle said to Debra she felt she’d wasted her life when giving voice to Terry Haley and exposing the “justice” system the way she did in that book seem to me to be the most honourable use of a life imaginable.

I only read Puberty Blues recently. I’d seen the movie as a teenager and it didn’t resemble my life as a shy bookish virgin in the North West of Sydney (just under two decades later) whatsoever. During my high school days I wished painfully that I had the courage or opportunities to get up to the things described in Puberty Blues but now I’m very very glad I didn’t. Like Debra I stayed home and studied or read books, it was my sister who was blonde and small (I’m tall like Debra) that snuck out and got drunk and stoned with older boys and raped by them.

I met a writer at the launch of my friend’s company a couple of months ago and he told me a story from the last couple of years from Gabrielle’s life, I won’t relate it here because it’s to be published in a review of When I’m 64 but it showed a capacity for immense kindness, generosity and respect which was also apparent in Carey’s writing but a different side of her is shown in When I’m 64. Reminded me of how differently Jennifer Worth is portrayed in the book about her by her sister than in her own words. I’m grateful to Debra for showing this other side and for the generosity and tenderness she showed her friend, and me the reader with the gift of this book.


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[G Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

When he was 64 Gabrielle Carey‘s father, Alex, ended his life. He had been suffering from chronic depression, he had been made redundant as an academic and he was no longer in contact with many of his female friends including his ex-wife; he was, as his family subsequently discovered, desperately lonely. To understand his decision and assuage her terrible grief Gabrielle wrote a book about him, In My Father’s House.

When she was 64 Gabrielle ended her own life. She too had been made redundant as an academic, was suffering from chronic depression, and no longer in contact with any of her ex-partners. Her lifelong friend, Debra Adelaide, has produced this beautiful and moving book to understand Carey’s decision and to console herself.

Quite unlike Carey’s book, Adelaide‘s is a self confessed work of auto fiction. It’s a collage of episodes from their shared life together, reflections by Adelaide about their relationship, her own life, and brutally honest descriptions of Carey’s mental decline in later years.

Throughout these later years Adelaide regularly visits Carey, helping her re-organise her house, getting her out of bed in the morning, and holding her when she’s crying.
Carey seems to show limited appreciation given the level of practical and emotional support Adelaide provides. One of the harder truths the book gestures towards is the caregiving relationships are often asymmetrical by nature, especially in periods of decline or instability.

This is Adelaide’s finest book. Throughout it she exposes herself as devoted, resentful and morally uncertain about her friend’s condition. She provides no easy resolution about Carey’s decline or her own, often ambivalent, response to it. Her refusal to sentimentalise Carey allows room for love and compassion while still acknowledging the damage that radiated outward from her choices. Adelaide recognizes that intelligence and literary talent do not protect a person from repeating the very injuries that shaped them.

I read this book twice, in quick succession; the first time rapidly and superficially, the second time more thoughtfully and slowly.
On both occasions, I ended it in tears.

[Jenny Esots · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir about a longterm friendship, recollections of school days from 50 years ago. How much do we remember? As lives diverge and reconnect, or not, as the case may be.
This author is writing about her friendship with author Gabrielle Carey in a fictionalised way.
I prefer Gabrielle Carey's way of creative non fiction, it is more honest and taps into the investigations behind the stories. The steps taken to track down an author or their family, which Carey does in her book on Ivan Southall, among other writing. The process shown is as valuable as the writing.
What we see in this account is two very different people held together by a shared love of writing, both being university academics teaching creative writing - or as Carey describes - the creative writing gulag.
What unfolds in this book is the unravelling of Gabrielle Carey who is running out of road, or feels like she is, with severe depression, to the point that she barely eats or sleeps.
It is tragic as the reader knows how it ends.
Mental illness rears it head and seems to run in the family. Debra Adelaide describes the helplessness of those around Carey who are checking in daily to little avail.
This is a portrait of grief and sadness at the loss of a dear friend, a kindred spirit.
The lighter moments are about those long ago school days, begrudgingly making egg sandwiches in home economics, missing the bus on the first day, lamenting that boys do not know how to write letters. The book is also a portrait of Gabrielle Carey that few would see, as Debra Adelaide is a close confidant and able to tell us the long journey to where things became out of kilter.
Read in one day.

[Catsalive · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author calls this autofiction, a term unknown to me, so I had to investigate... a literary genre that blends autobiography and fiction. Where a memoir is intended to be a factual account, autofiction prioritises emotional & psychological authenticity over accuracy & uses novelistic techniques to explore deeper themes. Whether memoir or auotfiction, how could it be anything other than subjective?

And so, this is not an autobiography of the author, or a biography of the friend, but a memoir about how the author felt & processed these events in her life. These words felt very real & heartfelt, an emotional account of the death of a lifelong friend. I, too, felt amazement at the things her friend didn't remember, or remembered completely differently: it is quite incredible how differently two people experience the same thing.

Full of love, loss, life, anger, compassion, bewilderment & friendship, it's a rather beautiful tribute to her friend, & also a fascinating way of processing one's feelings.

Beautifully written & very easy on the eyes, perhaps it's the font...

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

We experience profound grief when a family member or close friend dies. Even more so when that person takes their own life. I have experienced both of these things in my long life. I was moved when I read Debra Adelaide's short novel based on her friendship with Gabrielle Carey, who took her life when she was sixty-four.

The novel moves backwards and forwards to tell the story of a friendship that was formed in high school, strengthened when they cared for each other's children and made unforgettable for Adelaide when she helped care for her friend who was in the 'deep well' of depression in what proved to be her final years.

The book reminded me of The Spare Room, written by Helen Garner after she had cared for a friend dying of cancer. What skill Adelaide shows in writing about mental illness and death and in capturing significant moments that make up a life. This must have been a terribly difficult book to write, but Adelaide has made it work. It is a tribute to Carey and an insight into the friendship and writing lives of two very different women.

[the.literaturewitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

It feels wrong to give such a heartfelt work 3.5 stars, but it has much to do with my circumstances of reading that, coupled with the fragmentary nature of the work, did not allow a sustained connection throughout its slim length. The moments of affect were poignant and had me held tightly in whatever it described - the urgency of a friend's helplessness or the sureness of her love for her friend throughout it all, but the interspersing meanderings felt a little jagged and I felt a little lost trying to put the pieces together. Maybe that they don't fit together is the whole point but I am not one against fragmentation or missing puzzle pieces, if it can ultimately strengthen whatever partial whole it creates. This sounds like I disliked this book but I assure you, this book moves you like no other, there were some sections that felt a little obscure and had me waiting to get back to the meatier bits, and thus the connection felt a little janky is all.

[Dani Netherclift · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a tender, moving, and completely engrossing portrait of a friendship throughout life. I read it in a day. I read Gabrielle Carey's In My Father's House in my 20s, and it always stayed with me, so I understood all the references to Carey's father and her earlier life in Mexico, but you certainly don't need to have read that book to appreciate this one. I loved the beautiful, deft weaving throughout of the Indian mynah birds in Adelaide's Sydney backyard, with the winding story of her friendship with Carey, both in the more distant path and leading up to Carey's death in 2023. The book is a love letter to the writing life, and to an indelible friendship, and it is a gift to have read it.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not the expert on grief. I only know what mine feels like; I only know what I’ve recognised in other people in my life. For a wider perspective you need to be a regular visitor to Kate’s blog, Books are My Favourite and Best, where she brings professional expertise to reviews of ‘grief-lit’.

But I do think that when we are reviewing a book about grief, we should respond from the heart about how it made us feel, and leave the analysis to professionals in the field.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2026/04/17/w...

[Giovanna Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was some beautiful writing here, no doubt. Descriptions were quite poetic. I had to agree with another reviewer, the memories of the friend were quite one dimensional by comparison, just her lack of energy, her 'mis-remembering' compared to the author - the friend described felt 'less than' to me, which is purely the way I read it, and may not have been meant by Adelaide. She was there for her friend, absolutely no doubt, when she needed help with the everyday, and that is a lesson to us all.

[Neens West · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel (autofiction) details the Debra Adelaide's childhood friendship with famed Australian author Gabrielle Carey.

It provides insight into Gabrielle's complex personality and sad decline, through the lens of their friendship.

Unless you have a vested interested in the life of Gabrielle Carey, I'm not sure this book would appeal.

(Implicit references to Gabrielle's other 'annoying' friend - obviously Kathy Lette - were a highlight.)

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this book. I was a friend of Gabrielle Carey in primary school until we went to different high schools. I had hoped this book would give me more insight into Gabrielle post age 12, but instead I felt it was more about what a good friend the author had been to her. Three stars because it is well written but minus two for self-admiration.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work of autofiction flowed and kept me gripped. I loved the reflections on books and writing and depictions of birds and places I know. I found the prose on friendship, caring, and mental health real and solid somehow. I thought the reflection on the shift from fiction to creative non fiction and writing philosophies was thought provoking.