Say No to Death

Set in Sydney following the war, the novel follows the medical journey of Jan, a young woman suffering from tuberculosis, and her struggles to gain any help from a Government health service struggling for funds.

A reviewer in The Age was impressed by the novel: "'A novel built entirely around a social injustice is a rarity, but with competence and courage Dymphna Cusack, in Say No to Death, has presented the subject of the tuberculosis patient and, in a story of heroism, pathos and great sympathy, put the case for the sick civilian at the mercy of a Government — a Government and a people — who respond to the needs of the scourge of war so much more readily than to the scourge of illness...This is a book well worth reading, as much for the story as for the message it carries."[2]

A reviewer in The Mercury had a similar view: "In painting her characters all typically Australian - Miss Cusack has reached unusual literary heights. She shows a deep knowledge of the vagaries of human nature. The unexpected, courageous ending gives the final touch to a novel which must rank high in Australian literature."[3]

• Heinemann, Australia, 1951[4]
• William Morrow , US, 1952, under the title The Sun in My Hands[1]
• Seven Seas Publishers, Germany, 1959[5]
• Angus & Robertson, Australia, 1967;[6] and reprinted in 1974[7]
• Cedric Chivers, UK, 1973[8]

The novel was also translated into Russian (1961), Norwegian (1963), Lithuanian (1963), Romanian (1965), Hungarian (1968), Czech (1969), German (1970), and Georgian (1975).[9]

• 1951 in Australian literature