Culture

The Australian Called Iconic Australian Author Colleen McCullough “Overweight” And “Plain” In Its Own Obituary To Her

UGH.

by Alex McKinnon  30 January 2015

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Yesterday Colleen McCullough, one of Australia’s most highly regarded and prolific authors, passed away aged 77. The author of Australian classics like The Thorn Birds and Tim, as well as the incredible Masters of Rome series, McCullough also worked as a neuroscientist at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital and studied neurology at Yale. She was a brilliant, gutsy person whose impact on Australian literature was huge, and whose death has prompted an outpouring of grief and tribute.

So people are understandably a bit angry at The Australian, who published an obituary to McCullough this morning that started like this:

“Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth,” the obit touchingly opens. Never mind her staggering achievements, her intellect, her contribution to the imagination and heartstrings of millions through her work. Colleen McCullough’s greatest triumph was that she never let being fat and “plain of feature” stand in her way. What a top gal!

In the rest of the obit, which you can read here, we learn that “Colleen vowed never to marry,” that her father was a bigamist, and that she eventually married a younger man — none of which, you might note, has anything to do with anything McCullough is vaunted for. Imagine having to overcome the hardships of being an uggo to marry someone! What a struggle.

There’s been no word from the Oz yet, presumably because Hillary Clinton died and they’re writing up a heartfelt tribute to her pantsuits.

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Feature image via Getty.