Tag Archives: Lynne Leonhardt

March 31, 2019 · 1:50 pm

2, 2 and 2: Lynne Leonhardt talks about Step Up, Mrs Dugdale

Lynne Leonhardt
Step Up, Mrs Dugdale
(Matilda Bay Books)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL

LEL HR It’s a great pleasure to welcome to the blog Lynne Leonhardt, with her second novel, Step Up, Mrs Dugdale. Lynne and I have been friends since we were each working towards our PhD in Creative Writing—Lynne writing the work that would become her first novel, Finding Jasper (shortlisted for the 2013 Dobbie Award), and me writing what became The Sinkings.

In Lynne’s author bio, it’s possible to catch glimpses of her preoccupations as a novelist. She grew up on an orchard in Donnybrook in the South West of Western Australia—a world familiar to anyone who has read Finding Jasper. She studied music and English literature at the University of Western Australia while bringing up four children (yes, she is Wonder Woman), and Lynne speaks, in this post, about the influence of music, along with art, on her identity and her writing. She is the great-great-grand-niece of leading Australian suffragist Henrietta Augusta Dugdale, the protagonist of her new novel.

Here is the blurb for Step Up, Mrs Dugdale…

In 1867, Henrietta Augusta Dugdale, dairywoman of Queenscliff, is pushed to breaking point and leaves her fourteen-year marriage. With access to her children denied, she enters the freethinking world of Melbourne bohemia and sets out to change the law that casts women as property, with no legal rights of their own.

A fearless crusader for women’s justice, the indefatigable ‘Mrs D.’ outclasses those who try to silence or belittle her, all the while haunted by the loss of her three sons, the dark undercurrents of the past and the mysterious fate of her first love.

From newfound facts and family memorabilia, Lynne Leonhardt has created a luminous tale of love, loss, triumph and fortitude, set against the evocative coastal landscape of Port Phillip Bay and the wonder-city of Melbourne at the height of the gold-rush boom. Step Up, Mrs Dugdale is an unforgettable portrait of a pioneering suffragist—a hero for women, a trailblazer for her time.

Over to Lynne…

StepUp_FCR

2 things that inspired the book

Australian national identity was the thesis topic of my exegesis, part of a PhD in Creative Writing, which I completed in 2007. One of my focal points was the glaring absence of female representation in our national narratives. Because a male heroic tradition of mythical proportions had long dominated social constructions of national identity, women’s experiences and stories either had been inched out or had remained untold.

Finding Henrietta’s roots were the same as mine. By a fortunate stroke of serendipity, that same year I was introduced to Henrietta Augusta Dugdale (née Worrell) by my brother, who had come across the Australian suffragist while googling his second name, ‘Worrell’. From her online biography, it was clear we were related. Why then hadn’t we been told about this heroic member of the family before? I dug out a copy of our old family tree and there she was, literally hanging out on the end of a limb in obscurity. What I saw as the sidelining of our great-great-grand-aunt from family history was a calling. Hardly surprising that my Henrietta quest came as a natural follow-on from my PhD. The more I learned about this remarkable woman—both the public side and the private—the stronger my own sense of identity became.

2 places connected with the book

Despite all the advancements of the Victorian era, women lost ground they had gained during the Enlightenment. Ironically, the Doctrine of Two Separate Spheres for men and women became more prescriptive, each being defined in diametric opposition to the other. Woman’s place was restricted to inside the home while man’s was outside. Woman’s place was considered private; a man’s, public. Women, especially middle-class married women, were expected to be the ‘Angel in the House’. Bestowed by men, this romanticised rank was used as an argument against giving women the vote.

For women, like Henrietta, arriving in Victoria during the early 1850s, the Doctrine of Separate Spheres was severely disrupted. Initially there were no homes, no privacy, no separation between the sexes. With little more than a sheet of canvas over their heads, women were exposed to the hostile elements and the hurly-burly hotbed of gold fever. Pioneering women had to redefine themselves very quickly out of sheer necessity, in order to survive the harsh practicalities of life in this unknown land.

2 influences on the book

Art and music are integral to my writing because of their strong correlation with each other. Both art and music were early childhood pastimes when I was growing up in the countryside. I now feel they are very much a part of me. Identity is rooted in the arts. As much as the arts reflect culture, they affect mores and the fundamental sense of self. Like literature, every piece of art and music in itself tells a story, thus being part of a much bigger story in turn.

For me, the visual quite often precedes the written word. Wherever I am, my inner artist’s eye is always on the lookout. The framing and composition of artworks—what is included and what is left out—even in old family photographs, says a lot about society and its contradictions. Sadly, the lack of recognition of women artists through the nineteenth into the twentieth centuries has mirrored that of women writers and musicians. But, I suspect that in art, women could probably express themselves a little more freely.

Nineteenth-century paintings provide windows into domestic interiors of the time—the roles, the décor, fashions and fabrics, even the different shades of dye. Many an hour I have spent trawling through online galleries, immersing myself in Victorian culture, and the cross-pollination of imagery and ideas has added value to my written words.

Because of the enormous creative energy this novel has taken, I haven’t felt the need to dabble in art for quite some years. But the first thing I did when I had finished the final edit of Step Up, Mrs Dugdale was attempt a portrait of Henrietta. The photograph I tried to work from depicts her in her late thirties, but unfortunately the quality is poor. When I look at my version of Henrietta, I get the feeling she could well be looking at us ‘liberated women’ of the twenty-first century and I’m left wondering about her thoughts.

The appreciation of music is perhaps even more subjective than that of literature and art. Music engages heavily with the subconscious realm. It has an effect on the brain and on our most vital human organ, the heart. Yet music is also a form of escape. It takes one out of oneself. It consoles but it also gives rise to strength. So often, it can convey feelings that cannot otherwise be expressed.

Henrietta, a highly skilled pianist, reflects upon the power of music following an afternoon concert, how music has form of its own:

Music, Beethoven claimed, was the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Ah, but there was good music and bad music. Good music like this removed one from the dross of life in a way that transcended all spiritual and physical boundaries.

My musical background and love of music have enabled me to tap into Henrietta’s interior world, as I understand it. Though a long-lapsed pianist, I am familiar with the pieces that she plays in the story, continuing to play these favourites now and then. For all my slip-ups, I am sure the emotion communicated has helped me in translating experiences across time and space.

Step Up, Mrs Dugdale is available here
Follow Lynne via her website or on Facebook

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Tagged as 2 2 and 2, Lynne Leonhardt, Step Up Mrs Dugdale

September 10, 2013 · 11:17 pm

In fine company…

The Mt Lawley campus of Edith Cowan University, in Perth, is currently holding an exhibition called ‘Celebration of the Book’, which showcases the published creative work of graduates of the university’s higher degree program in writing (PhD, Masters and Honours), as well as some of the academic staff involved in the program.

Candidates graduating from these programs undertake a major creative work plus an accompanying exegesis; my PhD thesis, for example, consisted of a novel (submitted under the title ‘Ellipsis’ and subsequently published as The Sinkings) and an exegesis comprising two substantial essays, one on the subject of ambiguous genre and the other on ambiguous gender.

Many of the graduates of ECU’s higher degree writing program have gone on to achieve publication; outstanding novels that spring to mind—products of that program—include The Alphabet of Light and Dark (Danielle Wood), A New Map of the Universe (Annabel Smith), The Nature of Ice (Robyn Mundy), Finding Jasper (Lynne Leonhardt) and The Albanian (Donna Mazza). Even that abbreviated list includes one Vogel Award winner and one T.A.G. Hungerford Award winner, as well as four short- or long-listings for other major awards. To quote from the exhibition catalogue:

From 1999 to the start of 2013, twenty-one writing students have graduated with a Higher Degree from Edith Cowan University. More than half of their projects have resulted in significant publications. Many of our alumni have carved careers as professional authors and academics, mentoring a new generation of writing students. From a small base comes an impressive collection of printed works. As part of our 2013 Celebration of the Book Exhibition, Edith Cowan University is proud to showcase a selection of creative writing publications, with supporting comments from the authors.

I feel proud to be included among the writers featured in the catalogue (you can download a copy via the link here)—writers whose work I admire, many of them friends, and/or colleagues in various capacities.

So congratulations to ECU, to exhibition curator Robyn Mundy, to all the writers exhibited (full list below), and to one supervisor, in particular, who has been thanked so often that there is talk of a fan club (he would hate that!)—Dr Richard Rossiter.

And what fine company it is!
Dr Suzanne Covich
Dr Fran Cusworth
Dr Maureen Helen
Dr Simone Lazaroo
Dr Julia Lawrinson
Dr Lynne Leonhardt
Dr Donna Mazza
Dr Vahri McKenzie
Dr Anne Morgan
Dr Robyn Mundy
Dr Ffion Murphy
Professor Glen Phillips
Dr Marcella Polain
Associate Professor Richard Rossiter
Dr John Charles Ryan
Dr Annabel Smith
Professor Andrew Taylor
Dr Terry Whitebeach
Dr Danielle Wood

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Tagged as Annabel Smith, ‘celebration of the book’ exhibition, Danielle Wood, Donna Mazza, edith cowan university, Lynne Leonhardt, PhD writing programs, Richard Rossiter, Robyn Mundy

March 17, 2013 · 4:29 pm

Book review: Finding Jasper, by Lynne Leonhardt

I first read Lynne Leonhardt’s wonderful novel Finding Jasper some years ago, when it existed as a stack of A4 pages and had a different title. At the time, Lynne and I were both PhD candidates at Edith Cowan University, Perth. I think I had just handed in my thesis (the creative component of which became The Sinkings), and Lynne was a year behind me but well advanced with her novel. It is always a privilege to read another writer’s work in progress. I felt confident, as I read this one, that it would find a publisher. (I should add, however, that it’s damned hard to do that these days; the hard truth is that not all good manuscripts do get published. As Annabel Smith observed in an interview recently, it often it comes down to the precarious business of finding the one right person who will fall in love with the work.)

Tonight I finished reading Finding Jasper as a published novel—a fine production, Margaret River Press’s first full-length fiction title (2012).

Finding Jasper spans twenty years of the twentieth century—1945 to 1965—and is told in three discontinuous parts representing different phases in the life of its main character, Virginia (Gin). For West Australians, especially those of the baby-boomer generation/s, there is the special delight of recognition in the novel’s evocation of Perth and the South West in these years, but you don’t need to be West Australian to appreciate the richness and authenticity of the re-creation of that past—the prevailing social attitudes to women and children, ‘the Hun’ and ‘the yellow peril’, the ‘long-haired layabouts’ of the sixties; world events (such as war, postwar displacement, the unease of the Cuban crisis period, the Kennedy assassination); the sometimes cringe-inducing idiom (from ‘bally blighters’ and ‘sods’ to ‘tickety boo chums’); the accoutrements of the times, details such as fox furs and Bex, soda siphons and Craven A cigarettes.

The title character, Jasper, is the phantom of the story, a World War II fighter pilot who does not return from his last mission. Although absent, he is central to the lives of his daughter (Gin), wife (Valerie), sister (Attie) and mother (Audrey). But it is not Jasper’s novel; it belongs to these women, each of whom is materially and psychologically affected by that absence. Gin’s loss is perhaps the greatest, as she has no personal memory of her father and must rely on photographs and the stories of others.

Images of her father were always contained in one-dimensional shapes, missing fragments in a puzzle.

Cross-generational relationships are skilfully drawn, and the casual disregard with which the self-absorbed Valerie treats Gin is often painful to read. I was interested to observe that Valerie provoked some strong reactions at a Perth Writers Festival session recently; however, I found myself feeling some empathy for her. As a homesick British war bride and new mother transplanted to rural Australia, she is a stranger in a strange land at a time of social chaos and emotional upheaval. The property ‘Grasswood’, Jasper’s pride, tended so lovingly by Attie, is remote and, in Valerie’s eyes, desolate, and there are genuine threats from the natural world (bushfire, storms) and the human too (an unhinged neighbour). I was reminded of my late mother-in-law’s stories of having arrived in Australia from London in the 1950s and being sent to a tiny town in the Wheatbelt; the aching cries of the crows were, she said, the loneliest sounds on earth.

In contrast to Valerie’s perceptions are the lyrical passages showing us ‘Grasswood’ through Gin’s eyes.

Down here [at the dam] everything was calm and peaceful and the water looked inviting. Past the oily shallows, green and gold reflections shimmered, undefined, penetrating the constantly merging brown and silver streaks that stretched across the water. Back and forth above the ripples, metallic dragonflies hovered, then darted, their wings a brilliant blur of blue.

Part 3 of the novel, set in the 1960s, charts Gin’s coming of age, and seems to mirror an escalating pace of life. Despite several heart-breaking tragedies in this section, the trajectory is ultimately hopeful, without being prescriptive, and I felt a sense of elation for Gin in the final pages.

If you were to ask me about the changes made between the manuscript I read years ago and this polished debut novel, I could not tell you. Enough time has passed for the experience of reading the work as it stands today to feel brand new. I do know that it would have been honed and redrafted many times, because that is what good writers do. And I can tell you that I was so immersed, again, in Gin’s world that it was a wrench when I had to leave it behind.

Finding Jasper by Lynne Leonhardt (Margaret River Press, 2012).

ISBN 978 0 9872180 5 6

This review counts towards my total for the 2013 Australian Women Writers Challenge.