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Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

~ The life of Katharine Susannah Prichard, the art of biography, and other things

Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

Tag Archives: Intimate Strangers

An A to Z OF Katharine Susannah Prichard: I IS FOR… INTIMATE STRANGERS

25 Wednesday May 2022

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard's writings, Series: A-Z of Katharine Susannah Prichard

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Intimate Strangers

Katharine’s future husband, Hugo Throssell, was once obsessed with a theatre actor named Henrietta Watson whom he watched perform while he was still in school. On a dare, he wrote to her years later while working as a stockman on Ashburton Downs and then, when in London after being evacuated from Gallipoli in 1915, he looked her up. She was charmed to hear from ‘Ashburton Jim’, VC winner, and there was the beginnings of a romance between Hugo and Henrietta, cut short for some reason. On the war hero speaking circuit, Hugo liked to tell the story of Henrietta and eventually wrote it up as a story he called ‘Intimate Strangers’.

Rather than being jealous, Katharine decided to take the title for her novel exploring the strains of a marriage in middle-age. She wrote the first half of her Intimate Strangers just before the Great Depression, and that half is full of the beaches of Rockingham and a sense of the Roaring Twenties in Perth. In the second half, the Depression hits and the mood changes.

She denied it was autobiographical and insisted it was based on a couple she knew. I tracked that couple down and wrote of the similarities and differences in chapter 24 of The Red Witch, ‘The Mirage is Breaking Up’. Even if Rose and Les Atkinson were models, the autobiographical aspects are impossible to ignore and there are new revelations in my book. It all matters so much because she originally had her returned war hero character commit suicide – only for her war hero husband in real life do the same. She changed the ending, unconvincingly many think.

Intimate Strangers is finally available again as an ebook thanks to the Untapped project – you can borrow it through your public library (Borrowbox or Overdrive) or buy it – https://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Strangers…/dp/B09MZX9R8Y

Anguished Portrait of Marriage: Katharine Susannah Prichard’s Intimate Strangers

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by Nathan Hobby in book review, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Katharine Susannah Prichard's writings

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1930s, beach, Intimate Strangers, J. M. Harcourt, marriage, Upsurge!

intimate-strangers

When Katharine Susannah Prichard set off from Perth for London and then a tour of the Soviet Union in May 1933, she left the manuscript of Intimate Strangers behind. It is the story of the troubled marriage of Elodie and Greg Blackwood, set in Perth during the Depression. The manuscript she left behind finished with the suicide of Greg after he has gambled their house away, and presumably before Elodie even has a chance to tell him she’s leaving him for the adventurous Jerome Hartog. While Prichard was somewhere in Sibera, war-damaged Hugo Throssell shot himself, having piled up huge debts from a failed ‘dude ranch’ venture at their home. She later expressed niggling doubt to her son, Ric, that perhaps part of his state of mind had been caused by reading the ending of the novel. Before publication in 1937, she altered the ending to set up a reconciliation between Greg and Elodie. The novel and the suicide will always be associated, and the issue has resurfaced often in the years since, including when the novel was turned into an ABC mini-series in 1981 and a magazine ran a sensationalised headline. In the introduction to the 1990 edition, Ric acknowledged parallels between Greg and Elodie and Katharine and Hugo, but emphasised the differences and the creative alchemy that amalgamates and transforms people and events beyond simple equivalencies; ‘the unknowable truth remains unknown.’

Intimate Strangers is a portrait of marriage as a concept and institution more than a portrait of a particular marriage. Elodie and Greg’s problems in their marriage of fifteen years are set against the troubled relationships of those around them, especially virginal tomboy, Dirk, who holds a line of suitors in her sway, not wanting to marry any of them, but eventually yielding to one for money. On the beaches of Calatta and then back in the suburbs of Perth, Elodie contemplates running away with Jerome as Greg continues his dalliances and fails as a provider. Over and over, the novel circles around the questions of finding sexual and personal fulfillment in marriage and out of it, with sexual attraction pulling people away from commitment. There is no clear message; the appeal and the problems of adultery are both presented. The resolution has Elodie and Greg recommit themselves to each other at the same time as they applaud Dirk’s escape from her marriage. In the moral world of the novel, Dirk’s escape is permissible because the marriage’s oppression mirrored that of the capitalist oppression of workers; as part of that, her husband Ted was violent, leaving her bruised. Greg is not as bad as Ted, but by today’s standards at least, he rapes Elodie in Chapter 6.

Intimate Strangers is distinct among Prichard’s novels. Most of her novels are researched, taking place among a particular occupation group – opal miners, timber workers, circus workers, station workers. Intimate Strangers is closer to the middle-class, urban world Prichard moved in. The urban setting is unusual for her, although as Throssell points out in the introduction, two of her lesser-known works, Windlestraws (1916) and Subtle Flame (1967) are also set in cities. Her other novels are also much more plotted; more than any other her other works, Intimate Strangers occurs within the characters’ consciousness, their inner conversations and impressions. However, just in case you were in doubt that you were really reading Prichard, in chapter 19 Dirk and Elodie turn up to a rally of unemployed workers in Fremantle to hear Tony speak, and the speeches of a number of the unemployed are reported. The tumult of the Great Depression is not foregrounded, but intrudes most here and when Greg loses his job in the downturn.

The novel is drenched in seawater and sand, lovingly evoking Perth beaches in the amalgam place of Calatta, part Rockingham, part Cottesloe. The characters begin on holiday there for the first half of the book, and return a couple of times, including for the final resolution. All the characters live to swim or sunbake or walk along the beach or fish. It is a valuable picture of Western Australian beach culture in the 1930s, sitting alongside J. M. Harcourt’s descriptions in Upsurge! (1934).

The novel enjoyed a brief renaissance in July 1981 with the broadcast of the two part mini-series adaptation. A review for the mini-series by Cul Cullen in The Women’s Weekly is one of the most hyperbolic hatchet jobs I’ve come across, describing it as ‘the silliest thing to flicker, unwatched, across our screens’; ‘aimless, stitled and utterly without relevance to a contemporary audience.’ Surely it couldn’t have been that bad; but the only way to know today is to watch the only copy I can see listed in the world at the National Archives. (In his introduction, Ric Throssell writes that it was also The Women’s Weekly which published the article at this time blaming the novel for his father’s suicide. However, The Women’s Weekly is now fully digitized for that year, and there is no trace of the article. It may have been a different magazine.)

While avoiding simplistic autobiographical readings of Intimate Strangers, it is an anguished book from an anguished period in Prichard’s life. The characters’ ponderings on how to find happiness and satisfaction in life and particularly marriage are themes which resonate today as well, even if the novel reads as a product of its age. It is not the Prichard novel I’d recommend readers start with, but it is a significant work in her corpus, demonstrating her versatility, and shedding light on its context.

Amalgam Places: The Puzzle of ‘Calatta’ in Prichard’s Intimate Strangers

16 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by Nathan Hobby in Katharine Susannah Prichard, Katharine Susannah Prichard's writings

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Intimate Strangers, Perth beaches, place, setting, Tim Winton, Western Australia

If a writer sets a novel in a world without any familiar reference points, it might be described as surreal, or placed in the fantasy or alternative reality genre – Paul Auster’s In The Country of Last Things comes to mind. Other times, familiar places are given new names and also possibly amalgamated, while within that reality other larger places remain the same (Australia is still Australia). In Tim Winton’s work, is Angelus simply Albany renamed? One could go mad trying to tie down the suburb of Cloudstreet; it’s West Leederville, but it’s also Subiaco, and other western suburbs. And this is surely the point: renaming a familiar place loosens the constraints on the novelist. The novelist can construct their own place like building Lego, taking bits which go together. The railway line can be closer to the river. In the same way that time is manipulated, memories from different stages brought together, place can be manipulated.

So if I’m aware of this, why does my mind keep trying to crack the ‘code’ of Calatta, the beach setting in Katharine Susannah Prichard’s Intimate Strangers (1937)? Perhaps it’s because of Ric Throssell’s warning in the introduction:

The setting for the story was the familiar seaside scene of the Western Australian beaches. Anyone could tell that. ‘Calatta’ was Rockingham, or Cottesloe, or was it Point Peron? Or the Basin at Rottnest, perhaps? In Prichard’s lovingly evocative language the places and people seemed real. And yet, as in all works of fiction, reality and imagination are woven together in Intimate Strangers in new lives, new people, new events that exist only in the mind of their creator and the words in which their existence is evoked.

Throssell uses Calatta as a good example of how direct parallels can’t be drawn between fiction and life, a point which becomes important, biographically, when it comes to reading the novel as a portrait of Prichard’s marriage. Yet like the kid in class who ignores the point and goes off on their own tangent, I can’t help trying to put Calatta on the map as I read. In Chapter Four, the surf clubs compete, with Calatta going up against North Cottesloe, Cottesloe, City Beach and South Beach; later, it’s mentioned that Calatta’s ‘a few miles’ from Fremantle. It has holiday shacks, and a limestone main-street; cliffs; a view of an island. Just like Throssell warned, Calatta’s an amalgam and the point is to enter fully the novel’s world which is like my world, but also not like it – especially separated by eighty years.

In thinking through the function of ‘amalgam places’ for this post, I have a new appreciation of them. But James Joyce claimed Dublin could be rebuilt from his descriptions of it in Ulysses, and I’m quite fond of writers being very specific in evoking a place, using real names – if it’s done well. (I confused one reader in my current novel-in-progress is by writing about an alternative Perth where a ten story library sits on Heirisson Island, but still calling it ‘Perth’, and indeed calling everything by its real name. This objection is connected to all of this.) What do you think? Do you have a preference for fictionalised, amalgam places or not?

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Coetzee J.S. Battye Janet Malcolm Jennifer Egan JFK JFK assassination Joanna Rakoff Joel Schumacher John Burbidge John Fowles John Howard John Kinsella John Updike John Updike Jonathan Franzen journal writing JSB Judgment Day Julia Baird Julian Barnes Kafka Kalgoorlie Kate Grenville Katherine Mansfield Kevin Brockmeier King's Park KSP Writers' Centre language last ride Laurie Steed Left Behind Leonard Cohen Leo Tolstoy Libra Library of Babel Library of Babel Lila Lily and Madeleine links lionel shriver Lionel Shriver lists literary fiction literature Lleyton Hewitt lost book Louisa Louisa Lawson Louis Esson louis nowra love letter Lubbock Lytton Strachey Madelaine Dickie Man Booker man in the dark Margaret Atwood Margaret River Press Marilynne Robinson mark sandman meaning of life Melbourne Mel Hall meme memorialisation memory MH17 Michael Faber Mike Riddell Miles Franklin mining boom missionaries moleskine Moon Palace morphine Mother Teresa movies Music of Chance My Brilliant Career names Napoleon Narnia narrative Narrow Road to the Deep North Narziss and Goldmund Natalie Portman Nathaniel Hobbie national anthem Nick Cave Nina Bawden non-fiction nonfiction noughties novelists novels obituaries obscurity On Chesil Beach Parade's End Paris Hilton Passion of the Christ past patriotism Paul Auster Paul de Man Perth Perth Writers Festival Peter Ackroyd Peter Cowan Writers Centre phd Philip K. 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Recent Comments

Harold Coppock on Wandu, the lost manor in …
Faith Peters on Used tea bags for missionaries…
The Red Witch: A Bio… on Signed copies of The Red Witch…
Seasons Greetings, 2… on An A to Z of Katharine Susanna…

Bookmarks

  • Adventures in Biography
  • ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
  • Bernice Barry
  • It only goes up to your knees
  • Jane Bryony Rawson
  • Jenn Plays Recorder
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre
  • Laura Sewell Matter: Essayist and Biographer
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  • Speaking Thylacine
  • The Australian Legend
  • Timothy Parkin Poetry
  • Treefall Writing – Melinda Tognini
  • Whispering Gums
  • Wrapped up in books: the home of Guy Salvidge

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  • Paul Auster's Moon Palace : an overview
  • [Thursday 3pm #21] Belle Costa Da Greene : 'Girl Librarian'
  • The Joy of Knowledge Encyclopedia
  • Reader's Digest Condensed Books: 'as difficult to dispose of as bins of radioactive waste'
  • The Cruelty of the Game: David Ireland, 'The Great Unknown'

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  • 161,147 hits

Tag Cloud

9/11 19th century 33 1920s 1921 1930s 1950s 1970s 1971 1981 2000s 2004 2011 2015 2017 20000 Days on Earth A.S. Byatt Aboriginals activism Adam Begley Adrian Mole adultery afterlife Agatha Christie Alan Hollinghurst Alberto Manguel Alfred Deakin Amazing Grace Americana Amy Grant An American Romance Andre Tchaikowsky Andrew McGahan angela myers anne fadiman Anne Rice Arabian Nights archives art arts funding A Serious Man Ash Wednesday ASIO atheism Atonement Australia Australian film Australian literature Australian Short Story Festival autism autobiography autodidact Barbara Vine beach Belle Costa da Greene Bell Jar best best-of Bible Big Issue Bill Callahan biographical ethics biographical quest genre biographies birthday birthdays Black Opal Bleak House Blinky Bill blogging blogs Blue Blades Bodega's Bunch bog Booker book launch booksale Borges Brenda Niall Brian Matthews Brian McLaren Britney Spears Burial Rites Burke and Wills buskers C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis canon capitalism Carol Shields Carson McCullers Catcher in the Rye Catholicism celebrities Charles Dickens Charlie Kaufman childhood Child of the Hurricane children's books Choir of Gravediggers Christianity Christian writing Christina Stead Christmas Christopher Beha Cinque Terra Claire Tomalin classics cliches climate change Coen brothers coincidence Collie Collyer coming of age Communism concert Condensed Books consumerism Coonardoo Cormac McCarthy Corrections cosy fiction Dara Horn David Copperfield David Ireland David Marr David Suchet death Death of a president definition demolition Dennis LeHane dentist diaries divorce doctorow Doctor Who documentaries donald shriver Don DeLillo Don DeLillo Donna Mazza Donna Tartt Don Watson Dostovesky doubt drama dreams of revolution Drusilla Modjeska E.M. Forster ebooks editing Eichmann Eisenstein Elizabeth Kostova email empathy ensmallification existentialism faith Falling Man fame families fantasy fiction film and television folk football Frank Barscombe Fremantle Press G.K. Chesterton Gabrielle Carey Gallipoli genealogical fiction Genesis Geoff Nicholson George W. Bush Gerald Glaskin Gilead Golden Miles Goldfields Trilogy Graham Greene grandad great novels Greenmount Guinness World Records Guy Salvidge Hannah Arendt Hannah Kent Hans Koning Hans Koningsberger Harper Lee Haxby's Circus Hazel Rowley He-Man headers heaven Heidegger hell Henrietta Lacks Henry Morton Stanley Herman Hesse heroes Hey Dad! historical fiction history Holden Caulfield holidays Homer & Langley Home Song Stories House of Cards house of zealots House of Zealots Hugo Throssell humour Ian McEwan In between the sheets Indonesia Infamous Inside Llewyn Davis interstellar interview Intimate Strangers Invisible Ireland ISBNs Ishiguro itunes J.D. Salinger J.M. Coetzee J.S. Battye Janet Malcolm Jennifer Egan JFK JFK assassination Joanna Rakoff Joel Schumacher John Burbidge John Fowles John Howard John Kinsella John Updike John Updike Jonathan Franzen journal writing JSB Judgment Day Julia Baird Julian Barnes Kafka Kalgoorlie Kate Grenville Katherine Mansfield Kevin Brockmeier King's Park KSP Writers' Centre language last ride Laurie Steed Left Behind Leonard Cohen Leo Tolstoy Libra Library of Babel Library of Babel Lila Lily and Madeleine links lionel shriver Lionel Shriver lists literary fiction literature Lleyton Hewitt lost book Louisa Louisa Lawson Louis Esson louis nowra love letter Lubbock Lytton Strachey Madelaine Dickie Man Booker man in the dark Margaret Atwood Margaret River Press Marilynne Robinson mark sandman meaning of life Melbourne Mel Hall meme memorialisation memory MH17 Michael Faber Mike Riddell Miles Franklin mining boom missionaries moleskine Moon Palace morphine Mother Teresa movies Music of Chance My Brilliant Career names Napoleon Narnia narrative Narrow Road to the Deep North Narziss and Goldmund Natalie Portman Nathaniel Hobbie national anthem Nick Cave Nina Bawden non-fiction nonfiction noughties novelists novels obituaries obscurity On Chesil Beach Parade's End Paris Hilton Passion of the Christ past patriotism Paul Auster Paul de Man Perth Perth Writers Festival Peter Ackroyd Peter Cowan Writers Centre phd Philip K. Dick Philip Seymour Hoffman pierpontmorgan poetry slam politics popular fiction popular science Possession postapocalyptic postmodernism Pride prophetic imagination publications Pulp Purity Queen Victoria Rabbit Angstrom radio Radio National Randolph Stow rating: 5/10 rating: 6/10 rating: 7/10 rating: 8/10 rating: 9/10 rating: 10/10 ratings reading fiction autobiographically reading report Rebecca Skloot recap red wine reincarnation juvenile fiction rejection review - music reviewing rewriting Richard Flanagan Richard Ford Rick Moody Roaring Nineties Robert Banks Robert Hughes Robert Silverberg Robert Wadlow Robinson Crusoe Rolf Harris romance Rome ruins Russell Crowe Ruth Rendell Sarah Murgatroyd scalpers science fiction Science of Sleep secondhand books Secret River sermon illustration sex short stories Silent Woman Simone Lazaroo Simpsons Siri Hustvedt slavery Smashing Pumpkins social interactions social justice some people i hate sources South Australia souvenirs speculation speech speeches sport status anxiety Stephen Lawhead Stranger's Child subtitles Subtle Flame Sue Townsend suicide Surprised By Hope Suzanne Falkiner Sylvia Plath Synecdoche TAG Hungerford Award tapes teabags Ted Hughes The Children Act The Cure The Fur The Imitation Game theology The Pioneers The Revolutionary Thomas Disch Thomas Hardy Thomas Henry Prichard Thomas Mann thriller time Tim La Haye Tim Winton Tolstoy Tom Wright top 10 Towering Inferno Tracy Ryan Trove Truman Capote tshirts TS Spivet Twelve Years a Slave underrated writers Underworld unwritten biographies urban myth USA vampires Venice Victoria Cross Victoriana Victorian era Victorianism Victoria Park video Voltron w Wake in Fright Walkabout Walter M. Miller war War and Peace war on terror Water Diviner Wellington St Bus Station Westerly Western Australia West Wing What Happened to Sophie Wilder? Whitlams wikipedia Wild Oats of Hans William Wilberforce Winston Churchill Witches of Eastwick Working Bullocks workshop World War One writers writing Writing NSW youth Zadie Smith Zeitgeist Zelig

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