The book spans three generations, and the full duration of Molly's life. How hard was it to become Molly's character?

Molly is the product of my mind. I had to start with Molly as I knew her. I worked backwards, thinking if she was 22 when I knew her... when was she born? Where would she have gone to school? What did she think about? After the brief segment of her life that I knew about during the war, I had to begin to logically construct what happened to her next. She was the adventurous type, and I imagined that she got the opportunity to teach in New Guinea after the war.

I became acquainted with this creature I had created. I saw things in her that a lot of women tell me they would like to think or like to do. Because of this, Molly is an interesting character to the reader. While the title is 'Molly Mallone', the story also concerns the man she comes to love and marry, named Eban. He has a unique life and experiences that are discovered as the book unfolds.

As the book continues, it becomes the story of an interracial romance and marriage. Australia has traditionally been a white only society. How would a white women from this type of society come to terms with the Black Papuans? How would she react to being courted, and eventually marrying a Papuan man? These were interesting questions to me. But, the book is not just the story of an interracial marriage. Molly develops into a magnificent personality in her own right.

So, the sociological part of the book was fun to write. There are real people behind the characters, people I had met during my travels. The scenarios and social situations the characters go through are also quite real, either things from my personal experiences, or historical happenings in New Guinea history.