With her first published book, The First Time He Hit Her, UC graduate and author Heidi Lemon hopes to bring awareness to the relationship between verbal abuse and intimate partner homicide.
To do that, Heidi takes her readers into the world of Canberra mother-of-three, Tara Costigan, as her relationship with Marcus Rappel spirals out of control and ends in 2015 when Rappel kills Tara at her Canberra home with her sister and two young boys helplessly watching on.
The book chronicles Rappelโs drug use, growing paranoia and verbal abuse toward Tara, who finds herself isolated and fearful.
She obtains a domestic violence protection order in the week before her death.
Heidi heard news of Taraโs murder on her commute home from her job as retail assistant in Melbourne where she was living at the time.
On a packed tram she held onto the stirrups with one hand and read the gruesome details of Taraโs murder on her phone with the other.
Like most Canberrans, the brutality of the axe murder as Tara held her week-old baby at their suburban home shocked Heidi deeply.
From the moment she heard Taraโs story, Heidi said it took root in her and occupied her thoughts.
A few months later, Heidi met Taraโs uncle Michael and they decided to collaborate on a book. Heidi spent the next two and a half years travelling between Canberra and Melbourne conducting interviews, examining court transcripts, including CCTV footage of the moments before the crime, and plunging into Taraโs personal photographs and correspondence.
โWriting Taraโs story became my purpose,โ Heidi said. โI invested everything I had into doing the best job I could.โ
Heidi said Tara was always โsomewhere in her headโ while she wrote the book.
โI would dream about her,โ she said, โI would wake up and feel like my brain had been working on the book overnight.โ
Heidi felt connected to Tara; as women of a similar age, both had lived in Canberra and both had been in verbally abusive relationships.
Because the prevalence of domestic violence in Australia means personal experience is never too far removed from conversation, Heidi integrated her own experience into the book.
โIt stirred up some things that I needed to revisit,โ she said. โI felt I understood Taraโs despair.โ
Heidi is now married and living in NSW with her husband and has moved on from her troubled relationship, but some effects of the trauma stayed with her.
โI kept waiting for the moment when the illusion shatters,โ she said. โWhen it didnโt, I was surprised to learn that joy could be sustainable.
โI feel I got the happy ending that Tara deserved.โ
Writing has always been essential to Heidi; it was the only career she considered and said it helps her function in life.
But for Heidi, this book was both a privilege and an experience of profound change.
โIt will take me a while to unpack this process,โ she said.
โIโll continue to discover what Iโve learnt about myself through this book. But I do know Iโm a profoundly different person.โ
The experience of connecting with such a tragic crime wasnโt easy and Heidi said there were moments of โsoul-crushing despairโ when she didnโt think she could keep going.
โIt was too big and there was too much despair,โ she said.
โI knew I was going to finish it. I had to, but I didnโt know how.
โBut I did it to honour Tara.
โI never knew Tara.
โI had such good intentions and just hope Tara would approve of what Iโve done.โ
The First Time He Hit Her, by Heidi Lemon, published by Hachette Australia, will be out on 30 June.
If you or someone you know has experienced any kind of abuse, sexual assault, domestic or family violence, please call 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or visit their website to chat online.
If youโre concerned about your own behaviour and would like support or information, please call MensLine on 1300 78 99 78 or visit their website.
