The death of a child is every mother s nightmare. Imagine, then, how much more traumatic the experience must be when a famous son s suicide brings the world s press to the door, searching for reaction and intruding upon private grief.

Patricia Glassop knows exactly how it feels. She returned to her comfortable Australian home on November 22nd 1997 after a day s shopping.
There were numerous calls on my answerphone, mainly from journalists, she relates. One, whom I knew, said it was extremely urgent and would I please, please call her. Before I could answer her call, the buzzer on my entryphone started going crazy. When I pushed the button to see the screen I could see Channels Seven and Nine cameras in the background and hear voices yelling into the intercom. Patricia did not yet know that her son, Michael Hutchence, was dead. He was 37.
Patricia and her daughter Tina (Michael s elder half-sister) have co-authored Just A Man: The Real Michael Hutchence. It offers an intimate portrayal of the INXS frontman. The happy times as the band climbed towards rock s stratosphere are documented, together with their `insiders view of Hutchence s relationships with famous and beautiful women including Helena Christensen and Kylie Minogue.
The authors have not shirked describing the turbulent final years of Michael s life, either. They write of the decline in INXS s fortunes and Hutchence s growing disenchantment with the band; of his fears that something was wrong with the handling of his finances; of his heavy-partying lifestyle taking its toll; and, naturally, about his relationship with Paula Yates. Neither Patricia nor I have ever sought to make a martyr of Michael, Tina writes. He wasn t a saint.
But while Hutchence may not be put forward as a candidate for canonisation, it is Paula Yates who emerges least favourably from Just A Man. Her dogged pursuit of the singer has been well-documented. The two women also furnish numerous examples of what they regard as her relentless attention-seeking and express their belief that Michael was trying to end his relationship with her at the time of his death. They also vehemently reject the theory she held about his death that it was a result of auto-erotic asphyxiation. They insist it was suicide.
There are barbed comments aplenty, too. Tina writes that on the day following Hutchence s funeral we were all featured in the newspapers, amidst photographs of Paula s cleavage.
Yates death came one month prior to the launch of Just A Man. Did either of the authors have any regrets about the tone they had used when writing about her?
The release date had already been set before Paula passed away, Tina responds evenly. There is nothing we could have said about Paula that is any worse, so to speak, than what she said about herself in her autobiography. Paula was a very troubled person.
How did I know what Paula was going to do a month before our book was published? Patricia interjects.
The book has its roots in the immediate aftermath of Michael Hutchence s funeral. Unbeknownst to each other, both Tina and Patricia began to write as a form of catharsis. It was only later that they began to see what they had produced as being suitable for the public sphere. Their motivation, they say, is to set the record straight.
There were so many lies and insinuations [in the wake of his death], says Patricia. We weren t speaking to the press, but everybody else was.
In the last two years of his life, Michael was very hurt by the bad press he was getting, Tina continues. He really was very sensitive to it, and he would say, you wouldn t believe the way they lie about me . We wrote this so people could see the real Michael. We didn t want people to be left with just the tabloid version.
It is true that a broader picture of Hutchence emerges from Just A Man than has been drawn elsewhere. Both Patricia and Tina remember his shyness in INXS early days. According to their account, he had considerable trouble translating his innate charisma into effective performances. Years later, when his ability as a vocalist and showman had long since been proven, he persisted in referring to his public persona as that other Michael Hutchence , a construct which bore little relation to off-stage reality.
The same insecurity was to the fore in the singer s relationship with Helena Christensen, say Patricia and Tina. Whereas Kylie Minogue is depicted as down-to earth and optimistic, the two women found Christensen haughty, and Tina writes of how wounded her half-brother was by the Danish supermodel s tendency to mock him.
The authors are more cautious when describing the labyrinthine legal battles over Hutchence s estate. This costly struggle took place between Tina and Patricia on one side and Colin Diamond and Andrew Paul, executors of the singer s will, on the other. The case was eventually settled out-of-court a few months ago. The specifics of who will get what cannot be publicly discussed.
The tremors from Michael Hutchence s death continue to be felt. The legal settlement was soon followed by Paula s death. Bob Geldof, with whom both Patricia and Tina have a good relationship, now has interim custody of Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence. A court must soon decide what the permanent custody arrangements should be. It is, Tina acknowledges, a terrible decision to have to make.
There is no neat ending to this story. Both Tina and Patricia have experienced periods of depression since Michael s death. They hope that Just A Man, though a warts n all portrait, will also be a fitting testament to their son and half-brother. Tina s words at the book s conclusion are simple:
In the end he was, in his own words, just a man. A brilliant, very gentle and caring man, I think, and one who gave us a lot of love and left us many beautiful memories, which live on He clearly thought of himself as an ordinary man leading an extraordinary life. We should give thanks for that extraordinary life.

Just A Man: The Real Michael Hutchence by Tina Hutchence and Patricia Glassop is published by Sidgwick & Jackson, #16.99stg