y separately published work icon The Broken Book single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2004... 2004 The Broken Book
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.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

The novel is in two parts. Part one is in the form of the character Katherine Anne Elgin's journal and goes backwards and forwards in time and includes fragments of Elgin's autobiographical novel 'The Broken Book' about the character Cressida Morley who first appeared in the writing of Charmian Clift, and later in novels by George Johnston. Part two is the journal of the character Anna, Elgin's daughter.

Notes

  • Dedication: For Sandra Hogan
  • Author's note: 'The character Cressida Morley ... first appeared in the work of the writer Charmian Clift, and later in the novels of ... George Johnston. Here, Cressida Morley has been re-imagined, together with a new character, Katherine Anne Elgin, who shares certain biographical details with Charmian Clift. However, Elgin is an invented character, originally conceived as a literary response to Johnston's version of Cressida Morley in his novel Clean Straw for Nothing ...'
  • Epigraph:
    I was conscious that not only my remarks but my presence was cirticised. They wished for the truth, and doubted whether a woman could speak it or be it. (Virginia Woolf, Journal, 1909)

    Beauty is only the promise of happiness. (Stendhal)

    Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practise ... (E. M. Forster, A Room with a View)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Crows Nest, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Allen and Unwin , 2004 .
      Extent: 309p.
      ISBN: 1741143519

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

The Internationalists : Australian Writers and Contemporary Greece Anne Pender , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;

'The expatriate Europeans, Australians, New Zealanders and Americans who lived on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1950s and ’60s were a mix of fiction writers, poets, musicians, painters, journalists and photographers. Politically, many of them would have described themselves as internationalists. George Johnston wrote his novel My Brother Jack (1964) while he and Charmian Clift lived on Hydra, and with it he said he rediscovered Australia.

'The contemporary Australian writers Susan Johnson and Meaghan Delahunt have each been inspired in their own work by the fiction and memoir of Johnston and Clift. Both Johnson and Delahunt have spent long periods of their lives as expatriates themselves, living in the UK and other parts of Europe. In spite of the achievements of Johnson and Delahunt as novelists, their writing has been largely overlooked by critics. This article examines their work in relation to expatriatism, internationalism and the politics of contemporary Europe.

'The article examines Susan Johnson’s reimagining of the lives of George Johnston and Charmian Clift in The Broken Book (2004) in 2019, 50 years after Clift’s death. It also explores Delahunt’s To the Island (2011), which is set on Naxos. The essay articulates the ways in which Johnson and Delahunt have internationalised Australian literature as a direct result of their expatriate experiences.' (Publication abstract)

Susan Johnson Interviewed by Sandra Hogan Sandra Hogan (interviewer), 2011 single work interview
— Appears in: Perilous Adventures , vol. 11 no. 1 2011;
Two Sides to the Story : Against Chelsea Miller , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 15-16 October 2005; (p. 20)

— Review of The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
Two Sides to the Story : For Sophie Gemmell , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 15-16 October 2005; (p. 20)

— Review of The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
Mermaid Tavern Evelyn Juers , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 20 May no. 5329 2005; (p. 22)

— Review of The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift Nadia Wheatley , 2001 single work biography ; Charmian and George : The Marriage of George Johnston and Charmian Clift Max Brown , 2004 single work biography ; Searching for Charmian : The Daughter Charmian Clift Gave Away Discovers the Mother She Never Knew Suzanne Chick , 1994 single work autobiography ; The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
Bold Narrative Meets a Challenge Sara Dowse , 2004 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 6 November 2004; (p. 19)

— Review of The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
Damaged Subjects Kerryn Goldsworthy , 2004 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 266 2004; (p. 50)

— Review of The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
Puzzling Pieces in the Clift Jigsaw Delia Falconer , 2004 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 13 November 2004; (p. 5)

— Review of The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
A Woman's Life Found in Fragments Melinda Harvey , 2004 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 20-21 November 2004; (p. 10)

— Review of The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
A Heart of Gold Barry Oakley , 2004 single work review
— Appears in: Limelight , December 2004; (p. 44)

— Review of The Broken Book Susan Johnson , 2004 single work novel
The Owl Has Flown Valerie Lawson , 2004 single work biography
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 30-31 October 2004; (p. 12)
Making It All Fit Jane Cornwell , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 6-7 November 2004; (p. 8-9)
Charmian, George and Susan, Too Aviva Tuffield , 2004 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 4 December 2004; (p. 3)
Susan Johnson Interviewed by Sandra Hogan Sandra Hogan (interviewer), 2011 single work interview
— Appears in: Perilous Adventures , vol. 11 no. 1 2011;
The Internationalists : Australian Writers and Contemporary Greece Anne Pender , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;

'The expatriate Europeans, Australians, New Zealanders and Americans who lived on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1950s and ’60s were a mix of fiction writers, poets, musicians, painters, journalists and photographers. Politically, many of them would have described themselves as internationalists. George Johnston wrote his novel My Brother Jack (1964) while he and Charmian Clift lived on Hydra, and with it he said he rediscovered Australia.

'The contemporary Australian writers Susan Johnson and Meaghan Delahunt have each been inspired in their own work by the fiction and memoir of Johnston and Clift. Both Johnson and Delahunt have spent long periods of their lives as expatriates themselves, living in the UK and other parts of Europe. In spite of the achievements of Johnson and Delahunt as novelists, their writing has been largely overlooked by critics. This article examines their work in relation to expatriatism, internationalism and the politics of contemporary Europe.

'The article examines Susan Johnson’s reimagining of the lives of George Johnston and Charmian Clift in The Broken Book (2004) in 2019, 50 years after Clift’s death. It also explores Delahunt’s To the Island (2011), which is set on Naxos. The essay articulates the ways in which Johnson and Delahunt have internationalised Australian literature as a direct result of their expatriate experiences.' (Publication abstract)

Last amended 9 Oct 2014 14:06:52
Settings:
  • Sydney, New South Wales,
  • London,
    c
    England,
    c
    c
    United Kingdom (UK),
    c
    Western Europe, Europe,
  • c
    Greece,
    c
    Western Europe, Europe,
  • 1940s
  • 1950s
  • 1960s
Influenced by:
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X