Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Heidi Lemon, Hachette, $32.99.
The shocking true story of the murder of Tara Costigan, the woman next door. This sub-title depicts the harrowing nature of the contents of The First Time He Hit Her.
In February 2015, the horrific killing of Tara Costigan in Canberra shocked people across the country. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus Rappel had murdered her with an axe. Tara was killed in front of her two young sons, her infant daughter in her arms – the day after she took out a domestic violence order against him.
Rappel was sentenced to a minimum of 26-years jail for the murder. His sentence has since been extended for other assaults committed in jail.
Statistics demonstrate how disturbingly common domestic and family violence is in Australian society. Some tragic and deadly cases have included Brisbane mother Hannah Clarke and her three children, Blair Dalton, Sarah Brown, Rachael Anne Lee and Stephanie Scott. Rosie Batty has emerged as a powerful campaigner against domestic violence after her son Luke was killed by his father in 2014.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Personal Safety Survey 2016, an estimated one in six (17 per cent or 1.6 million) women and one in 16 (6.1 per cent or 0.5 million) men had experienced physical or sexual violence from a current or previous cohabiting partner since the age of 15 (ABS 2017).
Why are dozens of women murdered every year by men who profess to love them? The First Time He Hit Her endeavours to understand this tendency. It poignantly frames an examination of why domestic violence affects us all.
Lemon, who received an Honours degree in Creative Writing from the University of Canberra, wrote the book after she found out Tara had been in a verbally abusive relationship. As she says: “…that was what struck a chord with me too because I had been in a similar situation”.
Heidi started writing the book after her sister Dr Skye Saunders introduced her to Tara’s uncle, Michael Costigan in 2016, and he expressed a wish for his niece’s story to be told. The research included interviews with Tara’s family and making notes from recordings of court proceedings.
Tara Costigan had suffered verbal and emotional abuse, but Marcus had never been physically violent. Her murder seemed to come out of the blue, but as this extraordinary, often shocking, sad and distressing book reveals, that was not the case.
