It is as if I am slowly sinking in the water, just occasionally making it back to the top for a gulp of air - to a sort of memory of what life can be - what life should be - and then down, down, down I go again …

The only child of two famous but self-absorbed artists, Zelda Steele is adopted by her parents’ patrons when she is just a baby. Great things are expected of this privileged young woman, but at 27 years old, Zelda is dead, leaving two young children and a body of work that only hints at her promise.

Decades later, Zelda’s daughter Ruth returns to her childhood home to find the diaries her mother is rumoured to have kept. What they reveal takes her on a journey into the past: her mother’s, her grandmothers and ultimately, her own.

Weaving together the narratives of three very different women, living in vastly different times, The Steele Diaries paints a rich and evocative portrait of the Sydney art scene from the 30s to the 70s and the eternal conflict between motherhood and self.