Joan Lindsay published Picnic at Hanging Rock at 71. Her writing life presents its own mysteries

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The book joins a growing list of Australian literary biographies – if we can use the term “biography” for a case as complex as this one.

Review: Joan Lindsay: The Hidden Life of the Woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock – Brenda Niall (Text Publishing)

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What’s notable about this list is the strong presence of women biographers writing about female authors – often authors who aren’t considered among the most highly regarded or trendy, or cases where the shape of their literary career isn’t clear-cut.

For women it’s proving difficult to practice or get recognition.

Writin’ that made a real impression often got lost in the past. Networks of mates and fellow writers were often crucial. There’s a big treasure trove of knowledge about Australia’s literary culture hidden within these works, but it’s not being used to its full potential.

Mysteries, in art and life

Niall’s biography makes you wonder if the simple label “author” is enough to describe Joan Lindsay. Lindsay’s writing career included fiction, art criticism, and various forms of journalism, often with some success, but for her, writing was often a disappointing and frustrating use of her time and energy.

Until Picnic at Hanging Rock, of course. Lindsay’s enormous success with this novel – published in 1967 when she was 71 and launched, as it happens, by former prime minister Robert Menzies – naturally influences the way Niall’s book is put together. It shapes the final two chapters, having been hinted at in passing comments and puzzled questions throughout.

extends and complicates the story. Niall sparks Lindsay’s curious, critical interest in the making of the film and its reception.

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Discretion, silences and underachievement appear to have characterised much of Lindsay’s creative and, perhaps, personal life. The word “mystery” recurs throughout Niall’s book. It’s used to describe aspects of Lindsay’s childhood and her marriage – about which she rarely spoke or wrote – her lack of children, her goals and setbacks, and her reluctance to discuss such aspects of her creative life.

The “mysteries” finally come to the surface in Picnic at Hanging Rock, with its famously mysterious story about a group of schoolgirls vanishing without a trace. Niall’s book explains this. The (often unspoken) issues and ambitions from Lindsay’s earlier life are connected to the unresolved mysteries in the novel.

Art and marriage

and was influenced by the imagery found in his landscape paintings.

She was detached from her mum, who was a big fan of all things English, and her two lively older sisters. Her old man seems to have been a pretty intriguing bloke, but we don’t know much about him, and he’s still a bit of an enigma in this story. The fact her family wasn’t super close or like a typical Aussie household is seen as a pretty big deal in shaping Lindsay’s life later on.

The future deputy prime minister and Australian governor-general, was an important colleague and collaborator. They had a shared inner-Melbourne art studio in the early 1920s.

Daryl was the ninth child and sixth son in the Lindsay family, and he was a “loner since boyhood”. He had a go at various jobs, including banking and jackaroo work, but started sketching during World War I in France, then in a hospital in England, where he was given the job of drawing the facial injuries of wounded soldiers.

A teacher at the Slade School of Art, and Tonks offered him a place in the Slade’s drawing classes. London seemed like a world full of opportunity for a young artist just starting out.

The whirlwind romance between Joan and Daryl in London remains a mystery. They tied the knot in early 1922, just over eight weeks after Joan arrived from Melbourne. They spent their time in the city visiting art galleries. Joan also clicked with Tonks, who painted her, capturing “a yearning, a sense of mystery, a visionary inner life” in his work. This intriguing piece is featured in Niall’s book.

Artists, politicians and influential mates

When the couple got back to Melbourne, Daryl started working as a commercial artist, creating work for ads, newspapers and mags. Joan had a crack at a range of journalistic writing – interviews, essays, travel stories and reviewing some art exhibitions. Niall reckoned she had the potential to become a top art critic, although blokes usually got the gigs.

The influential collector of Australian art and the human in question were familiar with each other.

In 1926, a joint exhibition received positive feedback for Joan’s paintings, but in Sydney, Daryl’s work was the main focus. With the likely outcome being one winner and one loser in events like this, Joan decided that Daryl would be the painter and she would be the writer. Her art career largely stopped at this point. Only one of her paintings is included in her biography.

Niall outlines the major milestones in the couple’s life. The significant purchase was their buy in 1925 of the house they called Mulberry Hill on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. A generous renovation added “a second storey, an imposing entrance in American colonial style, a stable block, and a big garden that would become Joan’s main focus”. The house also got a large dining room, a drawing room, a studio, and a small room that became Joan’s “scribbling room”.

would later become residents.

He’d already done some unpaid work in London with agents from the National Gallery of Victoria’s Felton Bequest. Back in Australia, Murdoch’s connections helped Daryl get a curator job, which eventually led to him becoming the gallery director.

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(1949), writing about Australian art.

A buried career

I’ve spent a fair bit of this review talking about Joan Lindsay’s life and marriage, rather than specifically focusing on Niall’s book as a study of her character and creativity. The book mentions the mysteries or puzzles in Lindsay’s life, her discretion or repression of unhappiness in her marriage, and her hidden career ambitions. But it doesn’t always dig deeper into these aspects.

The childless marriage of the couple and their differing views on life in London versus Melbourne are up for discussion. Joan felt more at home in Melbourne, where she created a lively home at Mulberry Hill. Niall points out that Lindsay’s “deep creative spirit” was nearly smothered by her role as a wife and hostess. Lindsay’s break from her connections with Melbourne’s literary scene is also highlighted.

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The story of her life with Daryl and her inconsistent, then remarkable involvement in the writing life does, however, contribute to our understanding of cultural networks – and their drawbacks – in mid-20th century Australia.

David Carter doesn’t work for, give advice to, own shares in, or get money from any company or organisation that would gain from this article. He’s previously had funding from the Australian Research Council.