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Beyond the Rock
In the winter of 1966, at sixty-nine years of age, Lady Joan Lindsay wrote a novel about a group of schoolgirls from a prestigious ladies’ college who disappear while on a country picnic in the summer of 1900. She called it Picnic at Hanging Rock. The book was an international success, and the mystery is still creating headlines fifty years on.
Beyond the Rock looks at not just the myth of Picnic but also the story behind the novel, and the events that led up to it. It examines Joan Lindsay’s own enigmatic life, her complex marriage to Daryl Lindsay of the famous Lindsay family of artists, their enduring love and unconventional bohemian life, and her life at Mulberry Hill, the Lindsays’ own Arcadia deep in the Victorian countryside.
This is the story of one of Australia’s most famous novels, and the author who kept its secrets until she died.
Beyond the Rock looks at not just the myth of Picnic but also the story behind the novel, and the events that led up to it. It examines Joan Lindsay’s own enigmatic life, her complex marriage to Daryl Lindsay of the famous Lindsay family of artists, their enduring love and unconventional bohemian life, and her life at Mulberry Hill, the Lindsays’ own Arcadia deep in the Victorian countryside.
This is the story of one of Australia’s most famous novels, and the author who kept its secrets until she died.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published April 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
July 20, 2019
Do you know where you were in the early afternoon of August 8th 1975? Thanks to Janelle McCulloch, I do. I was at the world premiere of Peter Weir's film Picnic at Hanging Rock. It is not that I could ever forget that day - it changed my life - but I was not sure of the date. The closest I have come to finding a description of the feeling which this film aroused in my upon my first viewing is C S Lewis's explanation of what he calls "joy." This is from his memoir - "Surprised by Joy". He is talking about "imaginative experiences" - "The first is itself the memory of a memory. As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's "enormous bliss" of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to "enormous") comes somewhere near it. It was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what? not, certainly, for a biscuit-tin filled with moss, nor even (though that came into it) for my own past. Ἰοῡλἱανποθω [I long for too much!] and before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased. It had taken only a moment of time; and in a certain sense everything else that had ever happened to me was insignificant in comparison." Lewis relates it to the German word "sehnsucht", or longing for longing, (not for the satisfaction of the longing)...
Time and place are not so certain in Weir's film, or the book on which it is based, Lady Joan Lindsay's "Picnic at Hanging Rock". In "Beyond the Rock", a biography of Lady Joan Lindsay and her seminal novel, the author has synthesised years of research, archival delving and the interviewing of countless witnesses to provide us with a picture of Joan Lindsay, her unmatchable work of gothic Australian fiction and the stupendous Australian film of the novel. As Lady Joan Lindsay herself said, the ripples of whatever happened or did not happen, have never ceased to lap against the shores of today. The endless theories about the fictional or non-fictional disappearances, the fashions of Milan and Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" are lively examples of that influence, just as The Varnished Culture's own analysis of Lindsay's literary influences was informed by McCulloch's research on her library at Mulberry Hill.
Lady Joan's was a life of privilege, (relative) poverty, conservatism, unrestrained bohemianism, class consciousness and the disregard of linear time. Janelle McCulloch captures it all with insight and delicacy. Her opening paen to Hanging Rock itself is worthy of Lady Joan herself. As Anne-Louise Lambert, (who played Miranda to such stunning effect in Peter Weir's film) says, the film and novel are stories of loss and the breakdown of communication. That is of course the story of our land itself. The incongruity of its native inhabitants and those who came later; the beauty and the terror, the fey and the harsh reality are all brought together in this masterly work - a must-have for anyone interested in Australian fiction, essential film, the numinous, geology, mathematics, the seductive lethality of the Australian bush, life and death.
Time and place are not so certain in Weir's film, or the book on which it is based, Lady Joan Lindsay's "Picnic at Hanging Rock". In "Beyond the Rock", a biography of Lady Joan Lindsay and her seminal novel, the author has synthesised years of research, archival delving and the interviewing of countless witnesses to provide us with a picture of Joan Lindsay, her unmatchable work of gothic Australian fiction and the stupendous Australian film of the novel. As Lady Joan Lindsay herself said, the ripples of whatever happened or did not happen, have never ceased to lap against the shores of today. The endless theories about the fictional or non-fictional disappearances, the fashions of Milan and Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" are lively examples of that influence, just as The Varnished Culture's own analysis of Lindsay's literary influences was informed by McCulloch's research on her library at Mulberry Hill.
Lady Joan's was a life of privilege, (relative) poverty, conservatism, unrestrained bohemianism, class consciousness and the disregard of linear time. Janelle McCulloch captures it all with insight and delicacy. Her opening paen to Hanging Rock itself is worthy of Lady Joan herself. As Anne-Louise Lambert, (who played Miranda to such stunning effect in Peter Weir's film) says, the film and novel are stories of loss and the breakdown of communication. That is of course the story of our land itself. The incongruity of its native inhabitants and those who came later; the beauty and the terror, the fey and the harsh reality are all brought together in this masterly work - a must-have for anyone interested in Australian fiction, essential film, the numinous, geology, mathematics, the seductive lethality of the Australian bush, life and death.
August 7, 2017
Right from the beginning, McCulloch declared her intention to perpetuate the sense of mystery that surrounds the book (and movie), without trying to explain it at all. I appreciated knowing what her biases were, but this lack of objectivity and critical analysis bugged me all the way through. As did, the absence of footnotes. Not only was I not convinced that there was any mystery at all, but McCullough's continued attempts to try and prove so, felt weak and manufactured.
On page xix, she says,
"So just what haunts Hanging Rock? And is it geographical, paranormal, or some other force we can't explain? Nobody knows.
The place is a mystery."
I had been hoping for a more rigorous, in-depth exploration of the story and its author.
When I pick up a biography I expect to gain fresh psychological insight into the chosen subject as well as being utterly saturated in the detailed facts of their life and times. Neither happened.
Instead, there were too many statements that began, 'it was believed' or 'it was felt' or 'they seemed'. The repetition of phrases and ideas occurred too often for my liking. Many long bows were drawn to connect the un-connectable and then stretched to breaking point - my breaking point at least! I did discover some extra details in the 30 pages or so in Beyond the Rock that covered the same time period as Time Without Clocks in what proved to be the most interesting section of the book for me.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...
On page xix, she says,
"So just what haunts Hanging Rock? And is it geographical, paranormal, or some other force we can't explain? Nobody knows.
The place is a mystery."
I had been hoping for a more rigorous, in-depth exploration of the story and its author.
When I pick up a biography I expect to gain fresh psychological insight into the chosen subject as well as being utterly saturated in the detailed facts of their life and times. Neither happened.
Instead, there were too many statements that began, 'it was believed' or 'it was felt' or 'they seemed'. The repetition of phrases and ideas occurred too often for my liking. Many long bows were drawn to connect the un-connectable and then stretched to breaking point - my breaking point at least! I did discover some extra details in the 30 pages or so in Beyond the Rock that covered the same time period as Time Without Clocks in what proved to be the most interesting section of the book for me.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...
April 19, 2017
Well if you want some sort of relief from the creeper feeling you get after reading Picnic at Hanging Rock this is not the book to get it from. It'll probably just increase your creeper feelings to be honest.
Beyond the Rock is both a biography of Joan Lindsay and an investigation into the inspirations and truth behind the story of, Picnic at Hanging Rock. McCulloch crafts a beautiful narrative drifting from anecdotes of the Rock, historical and modern, to the life and times of Joan Lindsay. And man, did she have some life and times. The author of the australian classic is her own complex character. A veneer of bohemian wrapped around a woman still beholden to her Edwardian upbringing. As well as a closet mystic apparently.
We take a tour through Joan's early life, the dynamics of her family and her schooling to the marriage to Daryl Lindsay, an overview of her art and writing as well as her travels to the eventual conception of her seminal novel and the movie that followed it. It won't answer any of your left over questions, but it might give you an insight to how Joan viewed time.
Beyond the Rock is both a biography of Joan Lindsay and an investigation into the inspirations and truth behind the story of, Picnic at Hanging Rock. McCulloch crafts a beautiful narrative drifting from anecdotes of the Rock, historical and modern, to the life and times of Joan Lindsay. And man, did she have some life and times. The author of the australian classic is her own complex character. A veneer of bohemian wrapped around a woman still beholden to her Edwardian upbringing. As well as a closet mystic apparently.
We take a tour through Joan's early life, the dynamics of her family and her schooling to the marriage to Daryl Lindsay, an overview of her art and writing as well as her travels to the eventual conception of her seminal novel and the movie that followed it. It won't answer any of your left over questions, but it might give you an insight to how Joan viewed time.
June 11, 2017
This is more 4.5 stars, if it wasn't for the fact that some stories were constantly repeated in the Chapters. This is a book that delves into the what may have influenced Joan Lindsay to pick up her trademark purple biro and write the tale of girls gone missing at Hanging Rock in Edwardian Era Australia, as well as snippets of her own privileged life. It is a must for fans of the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock as well as fans of the 1970s Peter Weir Classic film. What is missing from the book however is a Notes section for anybody interested in going to the source of some of the writer's claims, but the beautiful hardcover edition of this book, as well as the images interspersed throughout the chapters do make up for this to a certain degree...
May 28, 2018
Apart from the very eye-catching cover on this book, I just had to read it because it is a biography of Joan Lindsay. While much of the focus is on her novel Picnic at Hanging Rock it also provides an interesting insight into Joan’s life. It is a worthwhile read for anyone who has read and enjoyed Picnic at Hanging Rock.
December 14, 2017
Fifty years since the publication of Joan Lindsay's lauded Australian novel 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', and with a much-anticipated television series being shot for Foxtel, 'Picnic' fever is in the wind again.
Cue a fresh analysis of Lindsay's engaging story, in the commanding hardback form of Janelle McCulloch's 'Beyond the Rock: The Life of Joan Lindsay and the mystery of Picnic at Hanging Rock'.
A biography of Joan Lindsay (1896-1984) is long overdue. The publication of her memoir preceded 'Picnic' by five years and she understandably shied away from the tsunami of publicity that rose in the wake of Peter Weir's 1975 film adaptation of her only successful novel. Much of the unwelcome attention sought a solution to what became of her three fictitious women who disappeared on the monolith on Saint Valentine's Day, 1900.
McCulloch's journalistic approach lends her work an investigative air, and with her skilled eye for design and heritage she quickly places Lindsay in context as a young Australian writer and artist with an Edwardian soul.
But this book is a confection. Seriously padded into something akin to an Art Nouveau ladies' journal, I almost expected to find pressed flowers between the parchment-thick pages.
It's not just that most of the content is too light for the gravitas suggested by the format, the problem lies squarely in the author's complicity in a case of mass denial orchestrated by the original publishers of Lindsay's 'mystery' novel.
The fact is, we've known the dénouement of the story about the three schoolgirls and their governess who go missing on a monolith, ever since the publication of the controversial last chapter of Lindsay's book in 1987.
Originally submitted as part of her manuscript, Lindsay built one of the first credible bridges between European and Dreamtime mythologies in this conclusion, but her publishers decided Australians were not ready to cross it.
The chapter was lopped off, allowing Miranda, Marion and Miss McGraw to disappear into thin air, a decision that firmly defined Joan Lindsay as a rather late-flowering Bloomsbury novelist akin to E. M. Forster instead of a modernist writer with the storytelling abilities of Janet Frame.
McCulloch does very little to analyse this critical decision, and nothing to place Lindsay in the era in which her book was written - the 1960s - a time when writers were experimenting in a similar manner across the world.
Instead, the supposition of 'Beyond the Rock' rests on the same old sleuthing that has always seen news-hounds following the trail of purely fictional hints that Lindsay's story was based on true events.
In lieu of evidence, McCulloch hypothesises around her conclusions and threatens that she could reveal something "when enough evidence is found to warrant publication".
Despite acknowledging the Wurundjeri people, who were dispossessed of Hanging Rock in the 1840s, McCulloch is content to let the gossamer veil fall over her research with enough whimsy and flim-flam to satisfy those who would rather have their mysteries unsolved.
I grew interested when she started to draw links between Joan Lindsay and the work of E.M. Forster, the English novelist often credited with inspiring Lindsay's 'mystery' because he experimented much earlier with tales of people disappearing and being impacted by time slips.
McCulloch references his 1902 work 'The Story of a Panic', Forster's first story, inspired by a walk into the hills near Ravello in Italy. In it, a boy encounters the full transformative force of classical mythology in his own time during an innocuous picnic.
In another of Forster's short stories 'Other Kingdom' a young woman disappears on a visit to a beech copse in an Edwardian remake of the Apollo and Daphne story. His 'Albergo Empedocle' relates the encounter an upstanding young Britisher has with ancient forces in Sicily.
But Forster eschewed mythological plot twists in his long-form fiction, in fact he lampooned his own use of them in his novel 'The Longest Journey'.
This is where Joan Lindsay should be credited with achieving what Forster never could in the novel form; but only if her last chapter gets reinstated with its courageous surrealism. Until then, she'll be mistakenly labelled an impersonator of 'Forsterian genius loci'.
What McCulloch wisely frames for the first time in a mainstream format is the work of academic Terence O'Neill, a friend of Lindsay's who researched where her story came from.
A real picnic to Hanging Rock by girls and teachers from the nearby Clyde School (Lindsay's alma mater) was written up in the school magazine in 1919. All the picnickers returned, somewhat dishevelled, after a twilight ramble to take pictures of the moon, but their experience inspired the telling of plenty of ghost stories.
Forty-five years later Joan Lindsay wove this true tale into a credible Edwardian fable with a surreal conclusion, during the era that spawned a time-travelling 'Doctor Who' and popular novels marrying ancient and postmodern themes, such as Ira Levin's 'Rosemary's Baby' and Alan Garner's 'The Owl Service'.
'Beyond the Rock' beautifully connects many of the dots about Lindsay's hitherto unknown life and work. Particularly revealing are the number of times she and Daryl attempted to live long-term in England, yet were not able to settle emotionally, financially and culturally.
They never became 'Bloomsbury' in the way other antipodean artists such as Katherine Mansfield did, but they were able to recreate it in Australia.
It's after that acceptance of her sense of place that I place Joan Lindsay, sometime in the mid-1960s, seeing her environment for what it was: truly Australian, with its own genius loci, not Forster's.
But McCulloch looks back from this time, not into it, or forward, to address her subject's most compelling escape: despite her publisher's reticence about the original last chapter of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', Lady Lindsay ensured it saw the light of day by entrusting it to her literary agent to be published posthumously.
She wanted the mystery solved, after all, and it's probably past time Australia started looking.
It remains to be seen if the Foxtel-Fremantle Media adaptation is the catalyst. If it isn't, the pathway to unravelling Joan Lindsay's story lies not in chasing a schoolgirl adventure - that was done by O'Neill - but in finding the seeds of the Aboriginal mythology that must have inspired her.
A journey like that would take us further 'beyond the rock' than ever.
Cue a fresh analysis of Lindsay's engaging story, in the commanding hardback form of Janelle McCulloch's 'Beyond the Rock: The Life of Joan Lindsay and the mystery of Picnic at Hanging Rock'.
A biography of Joan Lindsay (1896-1984) is long overdue. The publication of her memoir preceded 'Picnic' by five years and she understandably shied away from the tsunami of publicity that rose in the wake of Peter Weir's 1975 film adaptation of her only successful novel. Much of the unwelcome attention sought a solution to what became of her three fictitious women who disappeared on the monolith on Saint Valentine's Day, 1900.
McCulloch's journalistic approach lends her work an investigative air, and with her skilled eye for design and heritage she quickly places Lindsay in context as a young Australian writer and artist with an Edwardian soul.
But this book is a confection. Seriously padded into something akin to an Art Nouveau ladies' journal, I almost expected to find pressed flowers between the parchment-thick pages.
It's not just that most of the content is too light for the gravitas suggested by the format, the problem lies squarely in the author's complicity in a case of mass denial orchestrated by the original publishers of Lindsay's 'mystery' novel.
The fact is, we've known the dénouement of the story about the three schoolgirls and their governess who go missing on a monolith, ever since the publication of the controversial last chapter of Lindsay's book in 1987.
Originally submitted as part of her manuscript, Lindsay built one of the first credible bridges between European and Dreamtime mythologies in this conclusion, but her publishers decided Australians were not ready to cross it.
The chapter was lopped off, allowing Miranda, Marion and Miss McGraw to disappear into thin air, a decision that firmly defined Joan Lindsay as a rather late-flowering Bloomsbury novelist akin to E. M. Forster instead of a modernist writer with the storytelling abilities of Janet Frame.
McCulloch does very little to analyse this critical decision, and nothing to place Lindsay in the era in which her book was written - the 1960s - a time when writers were experimenting in a similar manner across the world.
Instead, the supposition of 'Beyond the Rock' rests on the same old sleuthing that has always seen news-hounds following the trail of purely fictional hints that Lindsay's story was based on true events.
In lieu of evidence, McCulloch hypothesises around her conclusions and threatens that she could reveal something "when enough evidence is found to warrant publication".
Despite acknowledging the Wurundjeri people, who were dispossessed of Hanging Rock in the 1840s, McCulloch is content to let the gossamer veil fall over her research with enough whimsy and flim-flam to satisfy those who would rather have their mysteries unsolved.
I grew interested when she started to draw links between Joan Lindsay and the work of E.M. Forster, the English novelist often credited with inspiring Lindsay's 'mystery' because he experimented much earlier with tales of people disappearing and being impacted by time slips.
McCulloch references his 1902 work 'The Story of a Panic', Forster's first story, inspired by a walk into the hills near Ravello in Italy. In it, a boy encounters the full transformative force of classical mythology in his own time during an innocuous picnic.
In another of Forster's short stories 'Other Kingdom' a young woman disappears on a visit to a beech copse in an Edwardian remake of the Apollo and Daphne story. His 'Albergo Empedocle' relates the encounter an upstanding young Britisher has with ancient forces in Sicily.
But Forster eschewed mythological plot twists in his long-form fiction, in fact he lampooned his own use of them in his novel 'The Longest Journey'.
This is where Joan Lindsay should be credited with achieving what Forster never could in the novel form; but only if her last chapter gets reinstated with its courageous surrealism. Until then, she'll be mistakenly labelled an impersonator of 'Forsterian genius loci'.
What McCulloch wisely frames for the first time in a mainstream format is the work of academic Terence O'Neill, a friend of Lindsay's who researched where her story came from.
A real picnic to Hanging Rock by girls and teachers from the nearby Clyde School (Lindsay's alma mater) was written up in the school magazine in 1919. All the picnickers returned, somewhat dishevelled, after a twilight ramble to take pictures of the moon, but their experience inspired the telling of plenty of ghost stories.
Forty-five years later Joan Lindsay wove this true tale into a credible Edwardian fable with a surreal conclusion, during the era that spawned a time-travelling 'Doctor Who' and popular novels marrying ancient and postmodern themes, such as Ira Levin's 'Rosemary's Baby' and Alan Garner's 'The Owl Service'.
'Beyond the Rock' beautifully connects many of the dots about Lindsay's hitherto unknown life and work. Particularly revealing are the number of times she and Daryl attempted to live long-term in England, yet were not able to settle emotionally, financially and culturally.
They never became 'Bloomsbury' in the way other antipodean artists such as Katherine Mansfield did, but they were able to recreate it in Australia.
It's after that acceptance of her sense of place that I place Joan Lindsay, sometime in the mid-1960s, seeing her environment for what it was: truly Australian, with its own genius loci, not Forster's.
But McCulloch looks back from this time, not into it, or forward, to address her subject's most compelling escape: despite her publisher's reticence about the original last chapter of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', Lady Lindsay ensured it saw the light of day by entrusting it to her literary agent to be published posthumously.
She wanted the mystery solved, after all, and it's probably past time Australia started looking.
It remains to be seen if the Foxtel-Fremantle Media adaptation is the catalyst. If it isn't, the pathway to unravelling Joan Lindsay's story lies not in chasing a schoolgirl adventure - that was done by O'Neill - but in finding the seeds of the Aboriginal mythology that must have inspired her.
A journey like that would take us further 'beyond the rock' than ever.
September 23, 2017
Let's get this out of the way. In her biography of Joan Lindsay, Janelle McCulloch clearly states that Lindsay's famous novel, "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is just that: a work of fiction. The story of the schoolgirls going missing at Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day in 1900 is a novel. We all know that. Janelle McCulloch clearly knows that.
But what McCulloch has discovered is that there is a lot more to the story than many readers have realised over the decades. She has spent many years researching Joan Lindsay's life, and part of this research involved looking at the back story behind the story, and what could have inspired the intriguing narrative that has captivated readers for 50 years.
However, McCulloch's book is first and foremost a biography, so it covers a lot more than Picnic at Hanging Rock. It covers all the years of Joan Lindsay's life, from her affluent childhood to her last, lonely days in the couple's home 'Mulberry Hill', after Daryl had passed away. It looks at Joan Lindsay's family (and to a lesser degree Daryl Lindsay's family), her friendships (including her lifelong friendships with Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and Lady Maie Casey, among others), her career, her books and writings, her passion for gardens and the Australian bush, and her many secrets, spirituality being one of them. (She hid this from Daryl.) It also looks at her passions, which included mathematics, time, picnics (naturally), and other interesting things, most of which are included among the themes of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The biography also looks (briefly) at Hanging Rock, which Joan Lindsay visited while staying at nearby Mount Macedon on summer holidays with her family. Lindsay admitted she became "obsessed" with it as she grew older. Her great-grandfather was a police magistrate in Kyneton, so stories of the area would have almost certainly been handed down through the generations, but Joan Lindsay was clever enough to weave a good tale without relying too much on fact - or indeed fiction. Picnic at Hanging Rock is most definitely fiction. But Joan's life was fact. And this book is a beautiful look at where the two intersect.
But what McCulloch has discovered is that there is a lot more to the story than many readers have realised over the decades. She has spent many years researching Joan Lindsay's life, and part of this research involved looking at the back story behind the story, and what could have inspired the intriguing narrative that has captivated readers for 50 years.
However, McCulloch's book is first and foremost a biography, so it covers a lot more than Picnic at Hanging Rock. It covers all the years of Joan Lindsay's life, from her affluent childhood to her last, lonely days in the couple's home 'Mulberry Hill', after Daryl had passed away. It looks at Joan Lindsay's family (and to a lesser degree Daryl Lindsay's family), her friendships (including her lifelong friendships with Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and Lady Maie Casey, among others), her career, her books and writings, her passion for gardens and the Australian bush, and her many secrets, spirituality being one of them. (She hid this from Daryl.) It also looks at her passions, which included mathematics, time, picnics (naturally), and other interesting things, most of which are included among the themes of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The biography also looks (briefly) at Hanging Rock, which Joan Lindsay visited while staying at nearby Mount Macedon on summer holidays with her family. Lindsay admitted she became "obsessed" with it as she grew older. Her great-grandfather was a police magistrate in Kyneton, so stories of the area would have almost certainly been handed down through the generations, but Joan Lindsay was clever enough to weave a good tale without relying too much on fact - or indeed fiction. Picnic at Hanging Rock is most definitely fiction. But Joan's life was fact. And this book is a beautiful look at where the two intersect.
July 23, 2019
This was an interesting, while not groundbreaking, biography of the Australian author Joan Lindsay, and in particular the interests and influences that eventually led her to write her 1967 best-seller (and Australian classic) Picnic at Hanging Rock.
As PAHR is one of my all-time favourite books (I went through a phase aged 12-13 when I was virtually obsessed with it), I was intrigued to read a little more about the enigmatic author's family and educational background, her extraordinary range of talents and the vast range of influences that underpin her masterpiece. I had been previously aware of some of the novel's influences, such as Lindsay's strong spiritual connection with the Australian bush and her preoccupation with the circular theory of time. However, this book introduced me to several additional details, such as that she was a student of Fredrick McCubbin at the National Gallery and that the mysterious ability to stop clocks and watches was a real phenomenon that followed Lindsay throughout her life.
McCulloch refers tantalisingly to rumours that several girls did indeed disappear in the vicinity of Hanging Rock during the late 19th century, which prompted Lindsay's story, however I was less than convinced, given the lack of any credible evidence.
Given the sumptuousness of this edition, I was a little perplexed by the prevalence of copy-editing oversights.
One for those with a particular interest in the subject matter.
As PAHR is one of my all-time favourite books (I went through a phase aged 12-13 when I was virtually obsessed with it), I was intrigued to read a little more about the enigmatic author's family and educational background, her extraordinary range of talents and the vast range of influences that underpin her masterpiece. I had been previously aware of some of the novel's influences, such as Lindsay's strong spiritual connection with the Australian bush and her preoccupation with the circular theory of time. However, this book introduced me to several additional details, such as that she was a student of Fredrick McCubbin at the National Gallery and that the mysterious ability to stop clocks and watches was a real phenomenon that followed Lindsay throughout her life.
McCulloch refers tantalisingly to rumours that several girls did indeed disappear in the vicinity of Hanging Rock during the late 19th century, which prompted Lindsay's story, however I was less than convinced, given the lack of any credible evidence.
Given the sumptuousness of this edition, I was a little perplexed by the prevalence of copy-editing oversights.
One for those with a particular interest in the subject matter.
May 8, 2020
This is a beautiful hardcover book (although there were some printing and grammatical mistakes in my copy) that looks at the life of Joan Lindsay and what influenced her to write Picnic at Hanging Rock. I enjoyed the insight into the wealthy classes during the Edwardian era in Australia and enjoyed reading the book. What didn't make this a 5 star read for me was lack of analysis and some conclusions seemed to have little evidence to back them up, other than the author's own assertions, assumptions and opinions.
July 8, 2018
This is a slight book, most likely as Lindsay herself was very private and didn't leave much of a paper trail, but any Picnic at Hanging Rock will probably find it invaluable. It is also very beautifully presented.
July 24, 2021
As much as anything else this book was beautiful just to hold! The pages are thick and the illustrations and photographs really sumptuous. I, like many, am a "picnic" tragic. This book taught me a lot about the author and particularly about the Lindsay family; I hadn't realised how well connected the couple were to people of influence in Australian life at the time. Some parts of it were painful to read, such as their reliance on alcohol and inability to have children. About the 'mystery' this book makes mountains out of molehills and makes it fairly clear (I believe) that there is no truth to the story. It's a shame the book wasn't more carefully edited as there are lots of typos. A thoroughly enjoyable and non-taxing read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2017
I read 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' as a teenager, and it certainly was a memorable read. The film was good too. This large hardback book is a biography of the author, Joan Lindsay.
My inner feminist emerged as I read through, feeling resentful that here was another woman who perhaps would have gifted us with so much more writing if only she hadn't been held back by the restrictions on women of the time. Even to the point that she did not own their much-loved home together, and her husband chose to leave it to the National Trust when he predeceased her.
A most enjoyable read.
My inner feminist emerged as I read through, feeling resentful that here was another woman who perhaps would have gifted us with so much more writing if only she hadn't been held back by the restrictions on women of the time. Even to the point that she did not own their much-loved home together, and her husband chose to leave it to the National Trust when he predeceased her.
A most enjoyable read.
October 4, 2021
First, this is a very neat book physically. The cover is very well designed, the book pages are thicker than average and there's a lot of photos in it. The book also is filled with information on Joan Lindsay and her husband. There's a little on the movie and the Picnic at Hanging Rock movie but the majority is biographical in nature.
It's also a little on the expensive side.
The main points of the book include:
The local tribesmen consider the lower part of Hanging Rock to be okay but the upper part to be evil, powerful and sacred. This is, of course, the part that the girls and the teacher disappeared from.
Some people that have explored the rock have said that they had the feeling that someone was watching them. Again, the local tribesmen have said that there are evil spirits on the rock.
Some of the tribesmen have said that the rock has 'unfinished business.'
Some of the names of people in the book/movie were based on real people's names.
The book discusses the importance of gardens to the Lindseys.
They had a lot of financial problems during their lives. They were artists and she was a writer so their income was not high and they tended to spend a lot on alcohol and related things.
In the movie watches seem to stop and this continues to this day. The cause of this is unknown. It obviously stopped watches in the movie and those watches had no electronic parts and it seems to continue to do that today even with watches that have electronic parts to them.
Clyde School is compared to the books Appleyard Cottage.
Both of the Lindsays had exhibitions of their artistic work.
Their marriage went through various rough parts but their remained married until the end.
The photos in the book are rather interesting. There is a bibliography but it's a 'select ed' one and lacks some of the books I've found (although there really aren't that many books about the movie or the original book.)
I think it would be interesting if a group of paranormal researchers with up-to-date equipment would do an examination of the Hanging Rock area. Also, part of that should be exposing a lot of watches to the area and see if the majority stop or if only a few stop or maybe not even any of them stop.
That the local tribesmen consider the rock to have 'evil spirits' is also significant. They have been there far longer than the Europeans and I don't think they would say an area is evil unless something had really happened there, at least once but most likely more than once.
Anyhow, it's a good book and worth getting.
It's also a little on the expensive side.
The main points of the book include:
The local tribesmen consider the lower part of Hanging Rock to be okay but the upper part to be evil, powerful and sacred. This is, of course, the part that the girls and the teacher disappeared from.
Some people that have explored the rock have said that they had the feeling that someone was watching them. Again, the local tribesmen have said that there are evil spirits on the rock.
Some of the tribesmen have said that the rock has 'unfinished business.'
Some of the names of people in the book/movie were based on real people's names.
The book discusses the importance of gardens to the Lindseys.
They had a lot of financial problems during their lives. They were artists and she was a writer so their income was not high and they tended to spend a lot on alcohol and related things.
In the movie watches seem to stop and this continues to this day. The cause of this is unknown. It obviously stopped watches in the movie and those watches had no electronic parts and it seems to continue to do that today even with watches that have electronic parts to them.
Clyde School is compared to the books Appleyard Cottage.
Both of the Lindsays had exhibitions of their artistic work.
Their marriage went through various rough parts but their remained married until the end.
The photos in the book are rather interesting. There is a bibliography but it's a 'select ed' one and lacks some of the books I've found (although there really aren't that many books about the movie or the original book.)
I think it would be interesting if a group of paranormal researchers with up-to-date equipment would do an examination of the Hanging Rock area. Also, part of that should be exposing a lot of watches to the area and see if the majority stop or if only a few stop or maybe not even any of them stop.
That the local tribesmen consider the rock to have 'evil spirits' is also significant. They have been there far longer than the Europeans and I don't think they would say an area is evil unless something had really happened there, at least once but most likely more than once.
Anyhow, it's a good book and worth getting.
April 8, 2023
As fascinating as it was to learn about Lady Joan Lindsay and the path to writing ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, I found this a bit of a disappointment. The bulk of it, covering Lady Lindsay’s life, is weighed down with inelegant and repetitive writing in desperate need of a stronger editorial hand. As a result, this clearly rich and significant life suffers from a lack of narrative focus. When the subject of the Great Book itself comes up and the promise of new insight through deeper investigation into its potential origins, so hauntingly and tantalisingly teased in the prologue, we are ultimately rewarded with… not very much at all, just more questions. That isn’t to say I want a solution to the mystery, god knows that’s the last thing I want, but to know more about Hanging Rock itself would have made this book more satisfying. Maybe that’s ultimately what I want, a biography of the Rock itself.
That said, I now have a greater appreciation for what an extraordinary woman Lady Lindsay was, how she sat at the crossroads of Australian history and culture and how it all converged in her writing of her (and our) masterpiece.
That said, I now have a greater appreciation for what an extraordinary woman Lady Lindsay was, how she sat at the crossroads of Australian history and culture and how it all converged in her writing of her (and our) masterpiece.
August 14, 2025
An exploration of the life of Joan Lindsay, the author of the novel, The Picnic at Hanging Rock, the novel, and movie adaptation. The synchronicities and coincidences in the life of the author, the probable mysteries the story was based on, and the open ended nature of the story has remained with me for 45 years. This book does not resolve the mystery of what happened to the girls of Appleyard College or its real life equivalent, but it is a satisfying investigation into why the book was written and film adaptation made. Primarily it is a description of the extraordinary woman who may have lived the mystery, dreamt of the story, put it to paper, and oversaw its film adaptation in a small way. Well worth the time of the fan of the novel and/or the movie.
October 18, 2025
An exploration of the life of Joan Lindsay, the author of the novel, The Picnic at Hanging Rock, the novel, and movie adaptation. The synchronicities and coincidences in the life of the author, the probable mysteries the story was based on, and the open ended nature of the story has remained with me for 45 years. This book does not resolve the mystery of what happened to the girls of Appleyard College or its real life equivalent, but it is a satisfying investigation into why the book was written and film adaptation made. Primarily it is a description of the extraordinary woman who may have lived the mystery, dreamt of the story, put it to paper, and oversaw its film adaptation in a small way. Well worth the time of the fan of the novel and/or the movie.
December 16, 2025
I was curious about Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Fact, fiction, or an artful combination of the two?
No further ahead after reading Beyond the Rock.
Makes for a pretty conversation coffee table book though with the gorgeous cover, endpapers, and detail throughout. Unfortunately not for my coffee table, the library wants it back now.
Fact, fiction, or an artful combination of the two?
No further ahead after reading Beyond the Rock.
Makes for a pretty conversation coffee table book though with the gorgeous cover, endpapers, and detail throughout. Unfortunately not for my coffee table, the library wants it back now.
May 12, 2017
I have an obsession with the novel and film this book delves into...I adored it.
September 12, 2017
Does little to explain the mystery of the book and film which is fine; there are some very strange comments such as Joan speaking her first word at 4 years of age -"beautiful".
March 7, 2018
Though prettily packaged, this rambling account of the life of Joan Lindsay and her one remarkable book amounts to nothing more than an extended Woman's Weekly piece. Spare me the musing out loud.
January 8, 2022
Brilliant!
February 4, 2022
I loved this book. The perfect mix of biography and exposé about Picnic at Hanging Rock. At various times I was reading the book alone at night, and shivers ran down my spine.
February 24, 2022
A biography of Joan Lindsay, author of Picnic at Hanging Rock. I found it entertaining and interesting in parts, but it's not a great biography.
August 2, 2023
A deeper inside view into the life of Joan and Daryl Lindsay, and the background behind the book and film.
October 17, 2023
Biography of Joan Lindsay, author of my favourite story of all time Picnic at Hanging Rock.
October 22, 2018
I went to one of the book launches of this book. I got to meet the author and get a couple of books signed.
I'm a huge fan of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' and fascinated with Joan Lindsay and her husband's family, who grew up near where I live now, so there was no doubt that I'd get this book. It was a great window into her life and how the famous novel was thought up and written. I went to Joan's house not long after I read this book, so got to see what context the book was written in, Daryl's studio and the art gallery through the whole house. I went with new friends I had just met - Beky and two Swedish girls who had come over to do a tour of Hanging Rock country, provoked by me to take the trip, by offering to take them on a tour. Out the front of Joan's house, I gave Johanna, whose birthday was a week later a copy of this book. She loved it too.
It's a great read if you loved 'Picnic' and want to read about Joan's life.
I'm a huge fan of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' and fascinated with Joan Lindsay and her husband's family, who grew up near where I live now, so there was no doubt that I'd get this book. It was a great window into her life and how the famous novel was thought up and written. I went to Joan's house not long after I read this book, so got to see what context the book was written in, Daryl's studio and the art gallery through the whole house. I went with new friends I had just met - Beky and two Swedish girls who had come over to do a tour of Hanging Rock country, provoked by me to take the trip, by offering to take them on a tour. Out the front of Joan's house, I gave Johanna, whose birthday was a week later a copy of this book. She loved it too.
It's a great read if you loved 'Picnic' and want to read about Joan's life.
April 13, 2017
For anyone that has asked the question: how much of "picnic" is actually fiction and how much of it truth? this biography is brilliant, a wonderful portrait of Joan Lindsay's life as well as some very insightful findings that will still never help anyone make a firm decision, but may hint you into what you think is the real answer.....the mystery lives on
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