The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
'Letters to Huldah gives new meaning to the phrase a life in letters. Though dated from 1988 to 1994, Jill Hellyers letters to her former English teacher gradually reveal the story of her life.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Life Writing as ConundrumSuzanne Dixon,
2014single work review — Appears in:
Australian Women’s Book Review,vol.
26no.
1/22014; — Review of
Letters to HuldahJill Hellyer,
2013single work correspondence 'JILL Hellyer's autobiography (1924-2012) provides plenty of “talking points” for a reviewer. Inter alia, it covers her crucial role in the fledgling Australian Society of Authors (ASA), her own writing, her dreadful marriage to an overbearing older man, her horrific struggles with one son's mental illness and another's physical handicap, the belated revelation of her daughter's sexual abuse, her years as a mental health activist, and her friendships. But only the most determined reader is likely to appreciate them. The book presents itself as a puzzle, as an obstacle course that perhaps mirrors Jill Hellyer's own life experiences. Consider the front cover, a posed photograph of the young Jill Hellyer, with the title Letters to Huldah over a subsidiary heading categorising the book as biography. Hmm, letters and biography, thinks the reader, who then finds it is not a biography of “Huldah.” On the back of the dustjacket along with any other editorial help, and without spelling it out, the vague blurb hints that the book is autobiography. The 120-word, prefatory “Author's note” (a reductive summary of the life of Huldah Sneddon, 1906-2006) yields the bare fact that Huldah was once Jill Hellyer's English teacher. ' (Author's introduction)
Life Writing as ConundrumSuzanne Dixon,
2014single work review — Appears in:
Australian Women’s Book Review,vol.
26no.
1/22014; — Review of
Letters to HuldahJill Hellyer,
2013single work correspondence 'JILL Hellyer's autobiography (1924-2012) provides plenty of “talking points” for a reviewer. Inter alia, it covers her crucial role in the fledgling Australian Society of Authors (ASA), her own writing, her dreadful marriage to an overbearing older man, her horrific struggles with one son's mental illness and another's physical handicap, the belated revelation of her daughter's sexual abuse, her years as a mental health activist, and her friendships. But only the most determined reader is likely to appreciate them. The book presents itself as a puzzle, as an obstacle course that perhaps mirrors Jill Hellyer's own life experiences. Consider the front cover, a posed photograph of the young Jill Hellyer, with the title Letters to Huldah over a subsidiary heading categorising the book as biography. Hmm, letters and biography, thinks the reader, who then finds it is not a biography of “Huldah.” On the back of the dustjacket along with any other editorial help, and without spelling it out, the vague blurb hints that the book is autobiography. The 120-word, prefatory “Author's note” (a reductive summary of the life of Huldah Sneddon, 1906-2006) yields the bare fact that Huldah was once Jill Hellyer's English teacher. ' (Author's introduction)
