Out of the Shadows
The Australian Women's Weekly|April 2020
Hilde Hinton was “the other sister” in the background as her siblings, Connie and Samuel Johnson, raised millions to fight cancer, but now she is stepping out with a heartbreaking novel inspired by the mother her siblings never knew, writes Susan Horsburgh.
Susan Horsburgh
Out of the Shadows

Hilde Hinton spent 20 years trying not to be a writer. She has always loved crafting words but as youth gave way to adulthood, she set her writing dreams aside – there were bills to pay, three boys to raise, and two siblings to support, one of whom was wrestling with cancer for a third of her life. “I chose obligation,” says the 51-year-old.

As Connie and Samuel Johnson rallied the country behind their Love Your Sister campaign, raising $10 million to fight cancer, their big sister was content to remain unseen. “I’m the Oscar [winner] for the best supporting role,” she says. “I was there every time they needed me. I was a mother figure. That’s what they needed and that’s what I wanted to provide because I felt I didn’t have it.”

Crunch time, though, came a few weeks after Connie’s death in 2017, when Hilde was feeling dazed and deflated, a “gaping hole” in her life. After badgering her to write for years, Sam gave Hilde a talking-to one night – and it changed everything. “He actually squared up,” she recalls. “He said, ‘No more hiding behind obligation. The kids are fine – they’re grown up. You’ve got no excuses.’”

So Hilde wrote, in between her shifts as a prison officer, for eight months. The result is The Loudness of Unsaid Things, a heartbreaking, ultimately hopeful book inspired by Hilde’s early years. It’s about a girl whose mother grapples with mental illness and takes her own life – a lost teenager who can’t articulate her anger and confusion in the fallout.

This story is from the April 2020 edition of The Australian Women's Weekly.

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This story is from the April 2020 edition of The Australian Women's Weekly.

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