I wondered suddenly what she was thinking and decided she was trying to love me, this son of hers in a school uniform she seemed to despise. It was as though she knew she had to love me, but didn’t have the first clue how to go about it.
In 1971 the South African Rugby team came to Australia. It was the apartheid era and young demonstrators gathered in protest. Near the iconic Tower Mill, a relic from convict days, they clashed with police. The events of that shocking night would reverberate for the next thirty years through the lives of Susan Kinnane and her son, Tom. When Susan returns home in 1988 for an inquiry into police corruption, she must confront a past she has never reconciled and a son she has never truly known.
The Tower Mill is a story about anger and grief and the bond between mother and son. It’s also a story about politics, when two decades of backroom deals and shady powerbrokers prompted an entire state to question what it valued.