The Well

by Elizabeth Jolley

A mysterious creature intrudes on a family's comfortable farm life.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Classics, Literature, 20th Century, Mystery, Novels

176 pages, Paperback

First published November 11, 1986

About the author

Monica Elizabeth Jolley was an award-winning writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s. She was 53 years old when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels (including an autobiographical trilogy), four short story collections, and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well known writers such as Tim Winton among her students. Her novels explore alienated characters and the nature of loneliness and entrapment.

Honours:
1987: Western Australian Citizen of the Year
1988: Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to literature
1989: Canada/Australia Literary Award
1997: Australian Living Treasure

Reviews

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

When this book got going it was so hard to put down and then it ends…..before really tying all the ends together. How would Kathy behave afterwards? What would happen when Joanna arrives?
Hester Harper is a lonely spinster living with her elderly father on their rural property when she hires orphan teenager Kathy as a kind of companion. The book is about friendship, possessiveness, change, and the way people hide things from themselves or don’t face up to big issues, just bury them. It’s all told entirely from Hester’s point view, Kathy’s actual thoughts of feelings are never given so can’t be sure that Hester is judging her correctly. Hester has old memories and experiences with her father that she has chosen to overlook. It affects how she looks at life and the people around her. Poor Mr Bird! His feelings seem so obvious but Hester just is so rude. I really enjoyed this and I’m surprised I’ve never read Jolley before, I must read some more.

[Ailsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She wondered how Kathy could suddenly look dishonest. She had to realise that it was not sudden, that she had always dreaded a revelation of something not quite truthful."

Australian Gothic? Love it.
Hester, a lonely rich spinster takes on the beautiful 16 year orphan Kathy. Starved for company she becomes dependent on her ward, jealously reading her letters and guarding her from friendships. One night, driving back to their isolated farm, Kathy hits something. It is not an animal.

Claustrophobic unsettling atmosphere which reminded me of Rebecca and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The ending aimed for The Turn of the Screw but missed. A shame because the rest of The Well was so brilliant it could have easily become an internationally renowned cult classic rather than the book that won the Miles Franklin in 1985.
I anticipate reading more from Elizabeth Jolley in future.

[notgettingenough · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is great up to a point…the point it finishes. I don’t really understand why writers are allowed to set up a terrific story which is truly hard to put down and then stop rather than end. I know that’s the modern thing to do, but all the same, does that make it art or a cop out? We all know that anything might happen in life. But I don’t see why it isn’t part of the duty of a story teller to tell the story. Not just the beginning and middle, but the end. The whole kit and caboodle.

I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t a critical aspect of the new genre ‘book club’. It’s something to talk about isn’t it? OMG, what did YOU think was going to happen next? Blah blah blah. But I don’t give a rat’s what my friends at ‘book club’ think about how it might have ended IF it had had a darned ending instead of just stopping. I want the author’s take on that. Instead she’s taken the easy way out.

Is that too much to ask? For a story to have an ending? Did it have an ending and I missed it? Opinions sought.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a long time I was madly in love with this woman. I even loved the idea that, like Agatha Christie, she thought up her plots while wishing the dishes.

This is another of her books in which an older woman has a relationship with a younger woman. In so many of these books the younger woman is, well, a bit thick - but invariably they will sing along to a song, some horrible pop song, and Jolley will make up the words - pure dross, but purely perfect dross.

People say things like, 'she writes like an angel' - Jolley writes much better than an angel.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sad little story. Not the tear-jerking kind of sad, but that uncomfortable, needling kind of sad that I can sense is going to cast a kind of melancholic gloom over the rest of my day.
I was intrigued by the premise of the story - two Grey Gardens-like women hit a man with their car and hide the body in a well on their secluded property, but the man is not as dead as they thought, and drives a wedge between the women. Of course, it is much more than this.
As I got further into the story I was constantly reminded of an episode of Winnie the Pooh that managed to traumatise me as a kid. In the episode, Rabbit cares for a young bird, they grow close, and then when the bird wants to leave and have its own life, Rabbit cannot accept this and tries to stop it. In my childish mind, it was tragic that the bird didn't want to stay with Rabbit, especially after all that Rabbit had done for it.
Hester, of course, is the Rabbit figure. Man, she was such a sad character. Her actions were really quite terrible, but I couldn't help but sympathise with her throughout. I mean, now that I'm older I get why it's outright cruel, and in the case of The Well, even abusive to try keep people close at the cost of their own will, but at the same time there is still that childish perception in me that wanted Katherine, like the little bird, to just be grateful and not spoil the (seemingly) happy life Hester had created for them. It was impressive how the book managed to make me revert to that childish feeling. Katherine can be a grating character, sure, but she doesn't deserve to be chained to Hester's side.
That's why the ending left me with such an ominous feeling.
I can see now what people mean when they talk about the odd kind of stories Elizabeth Jolley wrote. I'm looking forward to reading Milk and Honey, when I can finally get around it.

[Till Raether · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not just Gothic and suspenseful but also very funny. Loved the idiosyncratic grammar & vocabulary.

[lucy black · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m surprised by how many bad reviews this novel has received on here. I’m also surprised that I’d never heard of Elizabeth Jolley until picking this up at a book fair.

I thought it was really good. It was well written and well paced and had lots of good psychological clues in the tone. The Well reminds me a lot of Carol by Patricia Highsmith and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

The ending was sort of disappointing but fitting. I still don’t know who to believe.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think the grass is growing, might go and watch that instead of finishing this.

[Geoff Wooldridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Well by Elizabeth Jolley won the Miles Franklin Award in 1987.

It is set in rural Australia, in dry, flat farming land, mostly grain cropping country, and although the precise location is not identified, it is likely to be somewhere in Western Australia where Jolley settled in the late 1950s.

Judging from the clues provided by a few pop culture references, the story of The Well seems to be set in the 1970s.

Miss Hester Harper is a middle-aged spinster living on a rural property with her father. It appears to be a relatively prosperous farm, despite the regular cycle of droughts experienced in that part of the country.

One day, Hester brings home from town, along with her regular shopping, a young girl called Katherine, who was an orphan who had been raised in state care.

For Kathy, as she was sometimes called, being 'rescued' by Miss Harper, instead of being returned to care, was a godsend, and the teenager and the middle-aged woman quickly developed an easy and caring relationship with each other, proving mutual support and companionship.

Katherine helped Hester, who was encumbered by a gammy leg and walked with the aid of a stick, with domestic and farm chores, and Hester educated and pampered Kathy, including teaching her to drive.

Late one night, when returning home from a function in the town, with Kathy driving the Toyota, which was fitted with a solid roo bar on its front, they hit an object on the track. It turned out to be not a kangaroo, but a man.

Thinking the man was dead, Hester's immediate solution was to toss his body down the dry well on the property. Soon after, it is discovered that this man had stolen Hester's considerable roll of cash from the house, and that the money was now at the bottom of the well with the body.

Without giving too much of the plot away, as Hester and Katherine debate and argue on finding a solution to their dilemma, it seems that the 'body' may not actually be dead at all.

How this ultimately plays out is not perhaps as one might expect, and it is all very much quirky and wicked fun and delightfully nuanced.

The joy of this award winning novel lies in its wonderful rural characters, not just the eccentric Hester and impressionable Katherine, but also other landowners and shopkeepers that play significant roles, and especially the wonderfully endearing Mr Bird, whose stewardship of Hester's finances goes well beyond expectations.

This is a relatively short (176 pages), shiny story that is easy to enjoy, respect and appreciate for its wit and intelligence.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This metafictional novel is a memorable example of some of the more cutting-edge mid-’80s Oz fiction. Ostensibly gothic, it breaks the rules of its genre; the mysteries that compel the reader to turn pages are never revealed. For instance, was the man who Hester, an ageing spinster, and Kathy, her young orphaned companion, threw into a well, after Kathy ran him down by accident on a dark road, dead or alive? (Did Kathy really hear his voice, did she hallucinate doing so, or did she lie to mess with Hester?)

Though Elizabeth Jolley’s punctuation is often eccentric, and even distracting at times (e.g., ‘For God’s sake, child brake!’), it seems in keeping with the central character and The Well’s striking originality. While Katherine, Hester’s love object, plays games with her, Jolley plays (less callous) games with the reader, introducing a novelist character more than halfway through the narrative, who reappears towards the end and tells Hester:

‘I’m writing a perfectly horrific little drama set, do you see, in a remote corner of the wheat. Very regional. It’s strictly a novella. In writing it I have to keep to certain rules which have been accepted in literary circles. I’m in trouble already . . .’ […] ‘Yes, the tradition is that the story has a narrator who has gone through all the experiences in the novella and is relating them. I simply have no narrator!’ […] ‘I need an intruder to distort a relationship. The action goes forward but is governed by the events of everyday life.’ […] ‘I am looking for a narrator with experiences.’ […] ‘There are certain things people like to read about, you know, misfortunes, conflicts, passions and emotions – all rather heightened . . . I’d also put in . . .’

By the end, the main character, Hester, is shown not to have changed in essence: her key secrets are still locked away inside her, symbolised by the old well’s having been properly sealed off. Yet a child in the car of a passer-by who gives Hester a lift when she runs out of petrol, says, ‘Miss Harper, your spotlight on your roo bar’s broke.’ And the novel’s last line is: ‘Along this road, now tell us what happened!’

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an awful book. This was atrocious. Nah, I'm just kidding, I enjoyed it just as much, if not more so, the second time around. Elizabeth Jolley does have an odd strange writing style at times she never uses commas her sentences just seem weird strange like she is allowed to use commas if she wants she desires to. But aside from that, she captures both the stark beauty and the creepy isolation of what I assume was the countryside of Western Australia. The book's primary focus is on the elderly Hester Harper (a sharp-witted, troubled, though generous farmer's daughter), and Katherine (an innocent and very impressionable young woman) whom Hester adopts from an orphanage in her teenage years.

This faux mother-daughter relationship starts off very beautiful and, to repeat the word again, innocent. But as Katherine gets older, and naturally starts feeling the tug of the outside world, Miss Harper falls victim to many unquenchable fears of loneliness and jealousy, and desperately tries to hold on to her blooming companion, whom she sees as her daughter and her only friend. As these concerns continue to gnaw at Hester, something terrible and potentially life changing takes place on the isolated country road near their house, which fatefully links these two women together in a disturbing, distressing, and depressing secret one must never let the other give voice to.

I won't say anymore on the story. But I will reinstate how great I think this book is. It's not a horror book in any sense of the word, but no doubt there is some dark and creepy stuff going on here. Mostly it's a very clever psychological drama about jealousy and loneliness, and how some people just have no other choice but to embrace it. A pretty sad and gloomy read, but also quite funny at parts, and also very intriguing. This book is definitely a keeper.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to describe the sense of self inflicted isolation and sad desperation that is concurrent throughout the entire novel.On the one hand it is beautifully depressing and you feel moments of empathy towards the characters. On the other, and one which I felt more often then not, was this feeling of pure, unadulterated anger and disgust. Neither Hester nor Katharine's personalities were appealing. Granted one was indulged by the irresponsible doting and singular obsession of the other, which in a way was a direct result of her own childhood. I think that it is this analysis of the psyche that maintained my interest in the story. The mental battle of a lonely, ageing woman, whose only value in life was the companionship that Katharine provided. I could go into a ridiculously long analysis of the reasons and motives behind all the events and decisions made by Hester throughout the novel, but I think it would be of more value to find out for yourself. I have never before read something quite like this and it is easy to see why Elizabeth Jolley was able to obtain the publicity and name for herself that she did.

[Rtriptow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Elizabeth Jolley was recommended by a fellow Shirley Jackson fan. I've read Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a favorite author of mine. Elizabeth Jolley is no Shirley Jackson.

Jolley's editor obviously insisted upon a teaser at the beginning of the book about central events of the book, and I can see why. The reader then has to plow through 70 pages of tiresome exposition and poorly drawn characters before anything happens. Finally, almost halfway through the book, an event: repeated word-for-word from the 6-page teaser at the beginning; and the protagonists suddenly behave out-of-character and, sadly, out-of-sympathy. Because, by then, I no longer cared about them. They're annoying.

I also think the author rather lazily based her characters' personalities on the actors she fantasized playing the parts in a movie adaptation. By now, though, Jessica Tandy is deceased, and Nicole Kidman is too old for her part. (The book was published in 1986.)

There may be a plot to The Well, but who has the patience to find it?

[Pete Foley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the bush horror tension.
I even enjoyed reading 100 pages of a lonely, old (was she even 40?) lady's life.
But it's not that I wanted a resolution or super action (both would have pushed it out of the genre), but the ending failed it.

Also, shut up about Hilde.

[Niamh Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

"the rich dark fruitcake of life" a quote I repeat often and with gusto...what I would do to sit down and have a cuppa with elizabeth...I would say hi I love your work did you know I wrote a whole essay about the abject ritual of hair plaiting because of this book?

[sminismoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface it is a simply written tale with only 2 main characters, set in one place. But like the saying "Still waters run deep", so it is with The Well. In fact, water is a recurring motif here, both rain vs. drought, but also the deep, unseen ground water, which symbolises the inner turmoil of our respectable yet isolated spinster. Hester Harper hides passions and jealousies under a blunt and practical exterior. Her interest in her young charge Katherine is not as altruistic as she would have us believe. Hers is a selfish and possessive love. And Katherine, who plays the infantalised, niave ingenue, may or may not be as innocent as Hester would have her. The fantasies of the sheltered young woman clash with the dreadful and serious reality of a hidden crime. The ending is ambiguous, as is much in this book, but that merely adds to the vibe of the whole book.

[Gabrielle Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark but didn't really go anywhere. Enjoyable!

[Lin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gay in a sad and uncomfortable way but I did feel like I had Read More Australian Literature by the end and understood our colonial milieu?

[Randy Rhody · Rating 4 out of 5]

My comments, and not a review as such.

An altogether light and easy read. The central mystery kept me intrigued.

Haven't read many books from Australia. Frequent descriptions of the narrow roads threading through fields made it sound like England.

Reviewers seem interested in the relationship between the older woman and her protege, a dynamic of no interest to me.

I agree with another reviewer who questions the need for all the flashbacks to Hilde, a character who exists in someone's memory, years before the present story.

Yes, the final pages are kind of a joke on the reader, who is left dissatisfied by the author's abrupt and seemingly unplanned escape from her own puzzle.

[MaryG2E · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Well won for Elizabeth Jolley the 1986 Miles Franklin Award. Having forced myself to read to the finish, I fail to see how it won (must have been a lack of decent competition that year?!)

I quite enjoyed the plot, and the first 80-odd pages chugged along nicely, as Jolley established both the cast of characters and the cloying relationship of the two women, Hester and Katherine, in a remote rural setting. Everything changed on one fatal day, with The Dance, The Accident and The Robbery. Hester's carefully contrived world started to unravel, firstly due to her own suspicious nature, and secondly through the bizarre actions of Katherine.

Unfortunately for this reader, the writing style deteriorated from that key point in the story, as well as the characters' relationship. I kept wondering, while trying to plough through Katherine's rantings at The Well, and Hester's hyped-up migraine meanderings, whether the author was attempting to write stream-of-consciousness style, or whether the chapter just needed a darned good edit! When Jolley introduces the newly-arrived novelist, chatting in the general store about the nature of the Gothick novel, I thought this is just too cute, too pat for my liking.

One thing I became aware of, which other reviewers on this page have not discussed, was the key importance of class and social status in the book. Coming from a once-wealthy pastoral dynasty, Hester was a frightful snob, and her arrogant attitude to those around her brought her undone in the end. My favourite character in the book was Mr Bird, and she consistently looked down on him and ignored his advice, to her detriment. Hester got her just deserts in the end - loss of money, loss of land, loss of status, loss of love.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Well tells of Hester and Katherine who run over a mysterious creature. They dump the body in the well and appear to get away with it. However, Katherine is drawn back to the well and begins to tell Hester that she can hear a voice, that the creature is a man who is alive and wants to come out.

The Well centres on a few intriguing premises – what did Hester and Katherine run over? Is Katherine telling the truth about the voice in the well? How will Hester and Katherine grow apart in light of this incident? The story even intriguingly ends by circling back to the start of the novel…

It's a very intriguing read, but, unfortunately, not what that I found enjoyable. I found myself a little bit muddled by the loose handling of time. We begin the novel right at the start of the car accident, before going back to the events and backstory leading up to this, which are peppered with Hester's recollections of her childhood, then we re-experience the accident, moving forward with the plot only to circle back to the start of the novel and another recollection of the crash.

The characters are at times sympathetic, but also frustrating. I found Hester selfish, obsessive, foolish and cruel. Katherine was a very silly person who I thought was a complete waste of space and needed to shut the hell up. The supporting characters don't fare any better.

While I do like the uncertainty about what they ran over (man/beast) and whether it's alive or dead, it just didn't feel well done. I have a feeling that the novel was supposed to make the reader question what is real, to see themes and allegories, but I needed a little bit more clarity or, more importantly, meaning for it to work.

An exciting premise, but a frustrating read.

[Sooz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book just didn't do it for me at all. The characters were annoying, the dialogue was contrived, and the plot was drawn out (even though it is only 200 odd pages long, it felt so much longer). The only reason I kept reading it was to find out what happened to the person the women hit with the car - which is unveiled in a flash forward in the first few pages. The ending, for me, was anti-climatic.

[Clairabella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Legit 30 pages of grocery store talk. I did not like this book. Too much explanation of setting, not enough talk about what's actually going on that helps the plot along?
seriously if they read this book and got rid of everything they didnt need in this book it would have been 100 pages maximum. Idk why we're studying this. So many better books! I kept forgetting it was written in the 70s too. Idk I imagined the characters as really posh and victorian. idk. didnt like it.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most enjoyable Miles Franklin award winning books - short and engrossing from beginning to end, with a quality that is quite dream like. When I finished reading this book, it felt like waking up from a memorable dream where nothing is certain, but you have an impression that will continue to influence you for a long time.

[Kristy Buzbee · Rating 1 out of 5]

The descriptions I read of this book were, apparently, talking about another book entirely. The ending was the worst part; it wasn't even an ending.

[Nadia King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disturbing and brilliant. Utterly captivating.

[j · Rating 3 out of 5]

Festers with a pathetic loneliness and desperation that is almost unbearable. Really effective in that sense, as character portraiture, but I was less enamored with the prose than the tone.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this over twenty years ago but it still stays with me

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well written atmospheric story set in rural Australia about the relationship of two women, loneliness, trust and growing old. Hester's father left Hester a substantial rural property with at least two houses on the property. Hester has a limp and appears to be past the age of marrying and having children. She runs her property on her own, with the help of Mr. Bird who looks after her investments. By chance she offers to care for 16 year old Kathleen who comes from an orphanage. Both Hester and Kathleen seem to have a narrow view of the world and only a basic education.

The novel starts with Kathleen driving Hester's Toyota truck back from a dance. Kathleen is an inexperienced unlicensed driver and whilst driving a little too fast, hits a mysterious object standing in the middle of the road, close to Hester's house. The hit object remains attached to the front 'roo bar and Hester decides that only thing to do to is to dispose of remains down a well that is near Hester's house.

A vey well written character study on Hester and how she views and copes with her changing world. A very worthwhile read. This book won the 1986 Miles Franklin Award.

[Hayley Freeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t really know why I picked up this book since I never really enjoy Australian literature, but I thought perhaps this one could get me to feel less ambivalent about the genre. It did not. The actual plot was straight forward and easy to follow, the characters were fine at best and at worst just steeped in conservative ideals surrounding women. There was simultaneously a lot and nothing going on at the same time, the first 100 pages of the book read like a slice of life novel full of character building that ultimately doesn’t go anywhere. The last 70 pages were slightly more interesting but so incredibly repetitive that I ended up skimming through the last 30 pages to read the very last paragraph of the book. And the gag is, that it still made sense because nothing happened in those 20 pages that differentiated itself from the rest of the book. The setting of the book with the isolated Australian countryside landscape was strong, but that kind of thing isn’t my cup of tea so even that couldn’t really save this book for me. Overall just really mediocre, still waiting for an Australian author to blow my socks off. 5/10.