Nadia Wheatley and Marion Halligan, ANU Meet the Author
Nadia Wheatley is, I fear, not as well-known in Australia’s literary firmament as she should be because her credentials are excellent. Not only is there My place (1987) – a wonderful multi-award-winning children’s book about the history of place – but her biography of Charmian Clift, The life and myth of Charmian Clift, has been described by critic Peter Craven as “one of the greatest Australian biographies.” She has appeared here in a Monday Musings list of books recommended by indigenous writers (even though she is not indigenous) for her book, with Ken Searle, The Papunya School book of country and history. And these are just a few of her literary credentials.
All this is to say that when I saw that she was to be a “Meet the author” subject this week at the ANU – on a free night for me, no less – I didn’t hesitate to book. It didn’t hurt, too, that her Conversation partner was to be Marion Halligan (who has appeared here several times, in various guises.)
Now, I don’t want to discuss in detail her latest book – Her mother’s daughter: A memoir – which was the reason for this event, because I have almost finished it and will discuss it in my soon-to-come post, so I’ll just share, briefly, some of the main points from the conversation.
“Caught between an independent woman and a controlling man”
The book’s title suggests that the book is Wheatley’s memoir of her life with her mother (Nina, familiarly called Neen.) However, this is only part of the story. The book is, in fact, like a few I’ve read recently, a sort of hybrid biography-memoir, because it is as much a biography of her mother, who died in 1958 when Nadia was 9, as it is a memoir. Three others I’ve discussed here in recent years are Susan Varga’s Heddy and me, Anna Rosner Blay’s Sister, sister, and Halina Rubin’s Journeys with my mother. Interestingly, the mothers in all of these books experienced World War 2 in some way, though Wheatley’s mother differs from the other three European-born women in that she was an Australian who went over to work in the war.
Marion Halligan commenced the conversation by commenting that the book was a difficult read, and that it must also have been difficult to write. Wheatley agreed, commenting that people under-estimate children’s ability to suffer, but also their ability to survive…
… and both suffer and survive, Wheatley did. She was caught, she said, “between an independent woman and a controlling man”, but that was only the half of it. She wasn’t helped by a family which – only partly because it was the 1950s – did not feel the need to tell Wheatley what had really happened to her mother, resulting in the young Nadia hoping (if not totally believing), for some years, that one day her mother would return. She was abandoned by her father, whom she described as “a strange, sadistic person.” The family dynamics are complex, and I’ll discuss some of them a little more in my post on the book.
I will say, however, that the underlying biographer’s question for Nadia in writing the book was:
Why would a nice person like Neen marry an awful person like my father?
Because, awful he was … though not, it seems, to Neen in the early years of their relationship when they were working for/with refugees and displaced persons in post-war Europe!
What lifts this book above what could so easily have been a misery memoir is that it also works as social history of an era – of life in Australia in the first half of the twentieth century, and of the work Australian nurses did during and after the Second World War. The pictures Wheatley draws of the joys (yes) and challenges of the War for Nina are vivid, and ring true. Nina was a truly independent woman, despite the demands home and family exerted on unmarried “girls” at the time. The pictures Wheatley then draws of Nina post-marriage are, consequently, even more devastating – because of the gap between what could (should) have been and what was. Nina’s dire situation was compounded by the confluence of a controlling, sadistic husband and a time, the 1950s, when women had little agency in the face of such a situation. Even so, Nina did her best …
At one point during the conversation, Wheatley made the interesting – and obvious, if you know their stories – point that there are some parallels between her and her mother’s stories. Both were motherless from a young age, and both became involved in social justice action. There was discussion in fact about how her mother’s work with refugees is relevant to today’s refugee situation. Nina worked for the short-lived UNRRA and was involved in the early definition of just what a refugee is and in the practice of placing them.
Telling the story
In the Q&A, I asked Wheatley about the structure she chose to use in the book, about the fact that while is it generally chronological, she inserts herself into this chronology at times when she herself wouldn’t have been alive. For example, she describes the young Nadia asking her mother about a photo in an album. This enables us to see Nadia’s interest in her mother’s story, her reaction to her mother’s story, and her mother’s later reaction to the events in her life, at least in terms of how she wants to present them to Nadia. From the reader’s point of view, it makes reading this book far more engaging.
Wheatley answered that felt she needed to be in there “on the quest”, and referred us to AJA Simon’s biography A quest for Corvo: An experiment in biography, as one of her inspirations. She wanted the book to be her journey of discovery – “to have the detective story of her unravelling her mother’s story” – rather than just be a presentation of the evidence. Again, I will talk more about this in my post, but Wheatley did share some of the stories about how she went about this unravelling. I like this approach to non-fiction, not only because it’s usually engaging, but because it can strengthen the authority or integrity of the work.
There was more to the conversation – but some of it, as I’ve already said, will come out in my post, and some of it is best left for you to read yourselves in the book. I mustn’t give it all away!
Vote of thanks
To conclude, MC Colin Steele introduced The Canberra Times’ past – and, distressingly, to date, last – literary editor, Gia Metherell, to give the vote of thanks. In doing so, she said that Wheatley’s book shows why childhood biographies can be so potent. She quoted the late Australian critic Geraldine Pascall* (I think) who said that Australian writers write more often and more potently about their childhood than anyone else, besides English and French writers. What an interesting thought on which to end a thoroughly engaging conversation.
* Gia Metherell clarifies this in the comments below saying that it wasn’t Geraldine Pascall to whom she was referring but English academic Roy Pascal. However, on checking later, she realised she had misremembered and it was Richard Coe, in “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Australian: Childhood, Literature and Myth”, Southerly, 41, no. 2, 1981. Thanks Gia.
ANU/The Canberra Times Meet the Author
MC: Colin Steele
Australian National University
8 October 2018
Whispering Gums 
Sounds fascinating! I’m always interested in how authors come to write their stories.
Thanks Anna – yes, I think keen readers often are, aren’t they?
I’ve been an admirer of Nadia Wheatley’s for a long time: her oeuvre of children’s books is outstanding and I really should track down her bio of Charmian Clift:)
Yes, I should too, Lisa. I remember when it came out, but I’d recently read Suzanne Chick’s Searching for Charmian (though I think it had come out a few years beforehand) and didn’t feel I could commit to another – albeit more “formal” – work about Clift at the time. I’m sorry though.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Of course Clift was more of a personality in Sydney than in Melbourne, perhaps that’s why. I don’t remember her columns being syndicated, but I’m happy to be corrected on that.
Yes maybe that’s why. I was very aware when it came out. I’ve always been fascinated by Clift and Johnston, though haven’t read much of them!
Her columns were in the 60s so we were too young I think.
I’ve read a collection of her columns, but to be honest, they wore a bit thin after a while.
You’ve probably read more of her columns then, than I have Lisa. I’ve only read a couple.
And it was probably a mistake. Columns are like cup cakes, one every now and again is really nice, a surfeit is no good at all.
Yes, true. The more idiosyncratic they are, I think, the more you can tire of the voice in great swathes, even if you like individual ones.
Conversations with authors can be so enlightening. I personally love to read a book and then ask the writer a few questions about it. I have not read many childhood biographies. I must give a few of them a try.
They can be Brian, I agree. I often don’t ask questions – I worry that they won’t come out as articulately as they sound in my head. But, every now and then I manage to ask (what I think is) a sensible question!
Interestingly the two childhood biographies that Metherell mentioned were more autobiographical novels about childhood (like Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are not the only fruit). One that she named is Barbara Hanrahan’s The scent of eucalyptus which I’ve posted on here. It’s a good read (particularly for Aussies, anyhow.)
Nadia has been a favourite of mine for many years – possibly from when I discovered she had spent time in Greece. She had an essay once published in the SMH in which she praised teachers (of English, encouragers of reading, especially) which touched my teacher heart. Later when I spent time in Japan where teachers have shrines (as in Shintō) dedicated to them – where teachers are still largely (and deservedly) respected – Nadia’s letter of praise here in Australia – where chaps like Metherell were already ranged in attack – was like a fresh shower on parched earth – and in everything she has ever done since I have seen her consistency in that kind of support – it has never wavered. Her Mother’s Daughter is already in my TBR pile…I might open it up to-night – just to get a march on your own report, WG!
Ha ha Jim! I’ll look forward to your comment then.
Thanks for this comment on Nadia – it confirms my sense of her commitment to education, reading, teaching. She had a very tough growing up, but from that clearly came some strong values.
It was indeed an enjoyable evening. I would have said hello to you if I’d known it was WG up the back asking the structure question! Nadia is so forthright and interesting in conversation. She’s already demonstrated her impressive skills as a researcher, but my goodness, what it must have cost her emotionally to explore that territory. I keep thinking of the ten-year-old writing down her mother’s stories in a school notebook. I don’t suppose I was the only person in the audience to have thought how awfully proud Neen would have been of her daughter. There were two national treasures on stage that night…
Oh, what a shame Diana.
Yes, I thought exactly the same about Neen. She’d have been so proud. How prescient of that little girl to realise at that age that writing down her mum’s stories and her memory of her times with her mum would keep those memories for her. So often in grief we write our feelings as catharsis but this was her wanting to remember her mother. I’ve just finished the book. Oh dear, what a tough growing up she had.
Hi Sue, Just to let you know that it wasn’t Geraldine Pascall I was referring to but an English academic Roy Pascal — and I was wrong to attribute the quote to him. If I’d read my old uni essay carefully I’d have noticed that it was in fact from Richard Coe, who made the observation in “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Australian: Childhood, Literature and Myth”, which appeared in Southerly, 41, no. 2, 1981.
Besides “The Scent of Eucalyptus”, I mentioned Bernard Smith’s “The Boy Adeodatus” and, if memory serves me, “My Brilliant Career”. Other Australian childhood texts, for those interested, are (speaking of Charmian Clift) George Johnston’s “My Brother Jack”, Hal Porter’s “The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balcony” and Henry Handel Richardson’s “The Getting of Wisdom”.
Thanks for your interesting and enjoyable account of the evening’s discussion.
All the best, Gia
Thanks very much Gia… I tried to google the quote. Sometimes it works. I’ll fix it in the post. I couldn’t catch all those childhood stories, so thanks for these too. Another one would be Kate Jenning’s Snake, and Francesca Rendle-Short’s Bute your tongue. They start coming out of the woodwork don’t they, rather supporting the theory!
Just referencing that last para I think MF illustrates both the good and the bad of childhood memoirs. My Brilliant Career, My Career Goes Bung and Cockatoos were written with the fire of youth, while Childhood at Brindabella is the saccharine memories of old age.
But more generally, I wonder if the current fashion for memoirs with the detective work exposed reflects that many writers find the research process more interesting than their ostensible subject, I know I often do.
I’m not sure, Bill, that I find the research process MORE interesting but I do find it VERY interesting, and love it when authors do include it (well, when they do it well, that is. Is it something about our times that we like this more personal, more transparent approach?)