Final chapter unfolds

By Casey Neill
A FERNTREE Gully widow has seen her partner’s dying wish come true.
Peter Davis spent the final five years of his life working on his first fictional novel, Abraham’s Pictures.
His partner of 30 years, Teresa Cannon, managed the book’s release last month.
“It feels wonderful because I know that’s what he wanted and he worked so hard on it over so many years,” she said.
A publisher accepted the book just three weeks before Mr Davis died from cancer in September 2008.
“So he knew. It was just fantastic,” Ms Cannon said.
The story is based around a Melbourne photographer named Abraham.
“Abraham is given a prediction that he’s only got a short time to live,” Ms Cannon said.
“Peter was not ill when he wrote that book. So it’s a terrible thing of life imitating art.
“Once he’s given that prediction, he’s a cynic so he needs something really to jolt him out.
“That makes him start to reflect on his life and the book is a story of his reflection on his life.”
Ms Cannon said the tale was a reflection on Mr Davis’s life and way of thinking.
“But even though it sounds kind of heavy, lots of people have been saying it’s very accessible because of the way the story is,” she said.
“Peter was a storyteller so whether he was teaching or talking to us he always spoke in stories.”
Abraham’s Pictures was Mr Davis’s first work of fiction. He began writing it for his PhD which RMIT University awarded him in December 2007.
He had written for international and national newspapers and magazines for 25 years before he tried his hand at fiction.
Mr Davis was also an avid photographer and several of his shots are used in the book and attributed to have been taken by the Abraham character for his exhibition.
“So he’s kind of had a bit of a breakthrough in having a novel with pictures,” Ms Cannon said.
His work as a freelance writer and photographer took Mr Davis around the world.
He was reporting in Berlin during the fall of the Berlin Wall and was nominated for a United Nations Media Peace Prize for his features and photographs documenting life in the Mumbai slums.
Before his death, Mr Davis said he’d always lived with a sense of being an outsider.
“So I have sought to look at how others establish a sense of place in their world while working out my own,” he had said.
“And my own place has been firmly rooted in the milieu of both teaching and story telling.”
Mr Davis had said the two were intertwined. “As a story teller I have taken delight in helping others find a creative expression with their own narrative,” he said.
“I am proud to have mentored many young writers and photographers seeking creative expression.”
Mr Davis battled melanoma for several years before he died.
He said the experience was “an unbelievable roller coaster” for him, Ms Cannon and their friends and family.
“There have been times where I felt cheated – 53 is, after all, not old,” he said.
“There are so many more things I have wanted to achieve – to see – to dream and to imagine.”
He said his illness served as a reminder of the value of loved ones. “I have always known this but as the months unfolded I came to cherish this more than anything,” he said.