In her latest biography Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower, journalist and writer Susan Wyndham revisits one of Australian literature’s most intriguing figures: Elizabeth Harrower. Drawing on her personal friendship with Harrower, new research and revealing analysis, Wyndham brings to light the woman who wrote about power, control and female interiority long before society had language for it – in a way that hasn’t been done before (and it’s a must-read).
In the mid-twentieth century, Elizabeth Harrower was a rising star in the Australian literary world – writing intense psychological dramas in the 1950s and 1960s from the perspective of her female characters, who were usually young women and girls. “She was fascinated by power relationships, and what we now call coercive control and domestic abuse,” Wyndham tells Missing Perspectives.
“As an older woman born in 1928, Harrower resisted the label ‘feminist’ but she was writing about the need for women’s liberation long before the movement arose in the 1970s,” Wyndham explains. “She dramatised the restrictions that marriage put on women who were financially dependent on controlling husbands. Each of her novels has a young woman who reaches for a bigger life through reading books, developing an intellectual life, and escaping from small-minded families.”
Through the characters in her novels, Harrower depicted the internal revolt of women who wanted to break free from the expectations placed upon them. “Her writing is like a warning to young women: don’t get trapped!” Wyndham says. But suddenly, Harrower withdrew her fifth novel, In Certain Circles, in 1971, and then…there was silence. “She kept trying to write for another decade but only published a couple of short stories,” Wyndham says. “She had worked hard, worn herself out, made little money from her writing, and exhausted her urgent material. She lost confidence.”
Decades later, Wyndham met the author who had since disappeared from the spotlight, when Text Publishing reissued her books. “As literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald I interviewed Harrower in 2014 when her books, long out of print, were being reissued,” Wyndham recalls. “She was in her 80s then and pleased to have attention but reluctant to give much away about her background. I became intrigued by how she became a writer, what experiences fed into her dark stories, and why she stopped writing.”
The connection between Harrower and Wyndham was instant. “I related to her statement in interviews that ‘I was a divorced child,’ because I was also a divorced child,” Wyndham says. At Harrower’s Sydney apartment, their conversations unfolded over tea, literature and memories of a generation of women who had lived within invisible constraints that society placed on them. “Elizabeth and I got on well from our first meeting. We were both shaped by growing up as only children with a divorced mother, and shared a love of our Scottish heritage. She was warm and gracious, curious about people, enjoyed talking about her old friends including writers such as Patrick White. I visited her for afternoon tea at her apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour, and she remained sharp-minded, interested in new books and films, almost until her death at 92 in 2020.”
It is no coincidence that we are seeing a resurgence in Harrower’s books – particularly in times like these. “Amazingly, more than 50 years after she wrote them, Harrower’s novels still vibrate with a taut energy, crisp sentences, a vivid sense of place, and ruthless depictions of human nature that are timeless in their truth,” Wyndham reflects.
After years of research and friendship with Harrower, one question remains for Wyndham. “But I wish I had been brave enough to ask, ‘Were you ever really in love?’”
It is a fitting question for an author renowned for capturing both the cruelty and tenderness of humanity, and the complex experiences of women trapped in a society that refused to empower them.
In partnership with NewSouth Publishing.