**EX LIBRARY BOOK.Kathleen is facing old age alone. Her husband gone, she finds herself, much to her distress, slowly lowing her memory. She despises her children's callousness and self-absorption: her son "Brain" is too caught up in pursuing his own illusive freedom and identity; her daughter Shamrock and Shamrock's ruthless land-developing husband have neither the patience nor the empathy to allow Kathleen to live as she pleases. Faced with losing everything she loves or once loved, Kathleen is forced to take drastic action, while there's still time, to hold on to her beloved freedom.\ One of our best contemporary novelists, Thea Astley is at her most wickedly funny and provocative in CODA.