Publication Date: February 4, 2025
A charming and funny look at the golden years of radio broadcasting in post-war Australia that celebrates the extraordinary but unseen women who captivated a nation with their authentic stories of ordinary lives.
Martha Berry is fifty years old, a spinster, and one of an army of polite and invisible women in 1956 Sydney who go to work each day and get things done without fuss, fanfare, or reward.
Working at the country’s national broadcaster, she’s seen highly praised talent come and go over the years. But when she is sent to work as the secretary on a brand-new radio serial, created to follow in the footsteps of Australia’s longest running show, Blue Hills, she finds herself at the mercy of an egotistical and erratic young producer without a clue, a conservative broadcaster frightened by the word pregnant, and a motley cast of actors with ideas of their own about their roles in the show.
When Martha is forced to step in to rescue the serial from impending cancellation, she ends up secretly ghost-writing scripts for As the Sun Sets, creating mayhem with management, and coming up with storylines that resonate with the serial’s growing and loyal audience of women listeners.
But she can’t keep her secret forever and when she’s threatened with exposure, Martha has to decide if she wants to remain in the shadows or finally step into the spotlight.
The advent of television marked a significant change in the entertainment world. However, radio executives were determined to reign supreme.
Author Victoria Purman takes a journey back in time to 1956, where Martha Berry has just been assigned to work with a new radio producer in The Radio Hour . Radio serials served as part of the regular daily routine for residents in Sydney, Australia.
Martha, a spinster on the cusp of age 50, never imagined her life would turn out the way it has. Her new work assignment puts her directly under an incompetent man woefully unsuited for the task of creating a new radio program to captivate listeners. Twenty-four years of no promotions, just the expectation that she would do what she’s told.
Yet the brilliance of Martha’s character is her devotion to the public, even when it means taking up the reins and marching forward with no recognition. While many of the characters depicted in the story are fictional, there are tidbits of history woven in.
The Radio Hour draws attention to the workforce dynamics and the contributions of women during the 1950s.
Victoria Purman is an Australian top ten and USA TODAY bestselling fiction author. Her most recent book, A Woman’s Work, was an Australian bestseller, as were her novels The Nurses’ War, The Women’s Pages, The Land Girls, and The Last of the Bonegilla Girls. Her earlier novel The Three Miss Allens was a USA TODAY bestseller. She is a regular guest at writers festivals, a mentor and workshop presenter, and was a judge in the fiction category for the 2018 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature and the 2022 ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize for an unpublished manuscript.
