Kathy Lette is describing a recent encounter with grey nurse sharks \u2013 \u201cPeople say, \u2018oh, they\u2019re the puppy dogs of the sea\u2019, and I\u2019m like, really? I didn\u2019t see them fetching any sticks\u201d \u2013 when a woman with deeply tanned skin and long, sunbleached hair stops her on the walkway. \u201cI know you don\u2019t know me. I know you,\u201d she says. Lette immediately compliments her choice of eyewear. When she tells Lette she\u2019s here with her daughter and granddaughters, the author expresses disbelief.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t be a grandma \u2013 look at you! I would call you a glam-ma.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGirls,\u201d Lette calls out to the mother and daughters who\u2019ve just passed us on the path. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the coolest grandma!\u201d<\/p>\n
With all the warmth of the early afternoon sun, the woman tells Lette: \u201cI\u2019m so glad I saw you.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is one of many pauses we take along the \u201cquite short, really\u201d new boardwalk that tops the cliffs of Cronulla\u2019s southern tip. We\u2019ve barely finished introducing ourselves before we\u2019re stopping by her car so I can borrow a hat (I am very pale and she is, justifiably, worried about me).<\/p>\n
We also stop to admire the \u201cclear sparkling water, through the pine trees\u201d, a cute baby, a wind gnarled tree, and a street library erected along the path. \u201cI think that\u2019s a good choice,\u201d Lette says to a young woman in activewear who\u2019s just picked out a copy of The Girls by Emma Cline. \u201cI\u2019m glad to see the Shire girls have good taste in literature,\u201d she says softly, just after the reader has walked out of earshot.<\/p>\n
Lette\u2019s glasses are a sharp and ostentatious pair of studded red catseyes; a fitting metaphor for how the comic novelist, television presenter and professional bon vivant sees the world.<\/p>\n
Kathy Lette: \u2018Go forth, be fabulous.\u2019 Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
At Hungry Point, the end of the track, we look out across Port Hacking to a little village called Bundeena, inside the Royal national park. Aside from the odd beachside mansion, Lette says the view has not changed much since the 1970s, when she co-wrote Puberty Blues with Gabrielle Carey. That loosely fictionalised account of surfing, sexism and substance abuse in Sutherland Shire made Lette a household name in Australia and beyond. Today the indicolite water and distant broccoli heads of bushland are, as they ever were, stunning.<\/p>\n
After Puberty Blues came out, it took Lette a long time to be able to come back to Cronulla, \u201cbecause I was so traumatised by my youth here\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cApart from the horrible sexism and the surfy tribal rituals of sexual initiation \u2013 before that, it was a beautiful place to grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going from a 19-year-old \u201cnon-entity to overnight notoriety\u201d did not help, Lette says. While many may remember Puberty Blues for cementing the Chiko Roll in Australian culinary history, and for the phrase \u201cyou\u2019re dropped\u201d, the book and film which swiftly followed, raised hackles at the time for their depictions of underage sex, binge drinking, rape and drug use.<\/p>\n
Lette\u2019s mother, now 94, only recently told her about the anonymous phone calls, which ranged from heavy breathing to streams of misogynistic abuse, made to their home after Puberty Blues came out. \u201cThe anonymous phone call was the Twitter troll of its time,\u201d she says. And because everyone had their names in the phonebook, it was almost as easy to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t tell me at the time,\u201d Lette says. \u201cI would\u2019ve been just heartbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Girls, when I talk to them, they\u2019re not just surfing \u2013 they\u2019re surfing their brainwaves.\u2019 Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Mercifully, when Lette comes to Cronulla now, the view is the only thing that hasn\u2019t changed. Now she\u2019s wryly enthusiastic about her frequent trips to the beach \u2013 and not just because she fit in \u201ccheek to cheek\u201d the last time she stripped down to her G-string for an impromptu swim.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see the girls are all surfing, the surfy boys have finally flopped on the shore and evolved. And the girls, when I talk to them, they\u2019re not just surfing \u2013 they\u2019re also surfing their brainwaves, they\u2019re all at university and they\u2019ve got ambition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just so heartening for me to see that huge generational shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Lette divides her time between London and Sydney, her mother and sisters still live in the Shire. Her sisters \u201cdidn\u2019t have the whole post-traumatic stress syndrome that I had\u201d, so the water and walking tracks have always been \u201ctheir playground\u201d.<\/p>\n
At first when she came south to visit them, \u201cI would be so tense\u201d. She could feel herself tightening up as she approached Cronulla. \u201cBut when you\u2019ve got love and laughter and sisterly camaraderie in your life \u2026 that\u2019s the best cure for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Familial bonds are at the centre of Lette\u2019s latest novel, The Sisterhood Rules. As one might expect from Lette, it\u2019s twisty, risque and packed to the margins with puns.<\/p>\n