Elizabeth Harrower (1928–2020)

Listen to me: if you like Ferrante's Naples novels, go read this. Harrower's story is eerily similar. Harrower famously fell silent after writing a few novels. And nobody knows who 'Elena Ferrante' is, which makes me think... well, cue the conspiracy theories.

WT is about two sisters who struggle with the limited options available to them in war-time and post-war Australia. There is horrific domestic violence. There is generalized misogyny. One of the sisters gives in, one of them does not (lose the blood relationship, and doesn't this sound familiar, Elena?) All of this takes place is lovely, Jamesian prose, which lets Harrower lay out some great psychology:

"Looking into the intense darkness of Felix's gaze was not like looking into the eyes of an insane person, though the internal resistance was similar; yet it in no way resembled the experience of looking into the eyes of another nominally rational human being. His eyes were rather peep-holes through which a force could be glimpsed, primitive, chilling, subterranean beyond definition."

Though the sisters are great characters, this Felix gent is one of the great males of twentieth century literature: despite being utterly horrific, Harrower constantly makes her reader feel for him. It's clear he's at the mercy of this force within him, and the forces outside him as well. Of course, you don't feel for him that much. Mostly you just want him dead.… (mere)