Imagine a world where Earnest Hemmingway, Virginia Woolf, and D.H. Lawrence were allowed to go out of print and disappear from the public consciousness. That is in effect what has happened in Australia, where authors and works are allowed to drop out of circulation as we strive ever more for the next big story, the story which will explain us to ourselves. We as a culture have colluded in a collective amnesia. Fortunately, Text has taken a stand against a cultural cringe which forbids reflection by publishing classic Australian authors in their Text Classics series. Among them is Elizabeth Harrowers The Watch Tower.

Elizabeth Harrowers fourth and final novel, The Watch Tower, is centred upon the two Vaizey sisters Laura and Clare and their relationship with Felix Shaw, a wealthy and complex businessman from Manly, a suburb in Sydneys north. Like many fairy tales, this one begins with the death of the Vaizey sisters father and their difficult relationship with their emotionally distant mother. Laura, the eldest, takes the shock of losing her father and the upheaval of the familys lives hardest. She was a girl with prospects, a girl seen as a future doctor or opera singer, who now finds herself at the Manly Business College and is soon working as a secretary at Shaws box factory, to support her family.

Laura is a good girl; she is passive and obedient and, although saddened to have to leave school and go to Business College, she does not protest her fate. Even when offered her pick of jobs, having graduated top of her class, she takes the most convenient job, rather than one which would be more advantageous for her career. As the novel progresses, we see how Lauras passivity solidifies into inertia and denial, as the weight of her life choices become a prison.

In contrast to Laura, Clare is a free creature. She feels none of the obligations her sister feels towards their mother, she is free to be argumentative and stroppy, but also to delight in life and the new surroundings in which she finds herself. As the story progresses, Clare is the witness, the watcher, who observes what is happening within the house between Felix and Laura, and yet is detached from it.

The third character, who makes up this trio, is Felix Shaw, a small time businessman who employs Laura at his box factory, and later brings the sisters under his care when their mother leaves for England. Felix is both a terrifying and a pitiable character. He is intensely lonely, desperately needy when seeking the approval of his fellow men. His sycophantic actions towards wealthier more successful men are almost painful. His generosity and gift giving is lavish and would make him a hero in another type of novel, were it not for the fact that his gifts always come with strings attached. Felix Shaw is a man who desires control and obedience to his will, and being unable to gain this from men he turns to the women in his life, Laura and Clare, and dominates them with relentless cruelty.

Given the subject matter, this is a book which should be almost painful to read, but such is the skill of Elizabeth Harrower, that we stay with it. The lightness of the narration and the speed with which we are propelled through the narrative gives us enough time to register what is happening and how the relationships have changed, but not so much that we become mired in the heaviness of the domestic oppression. While reading the first part of this book the reader is left with the impression that we can see where the story is going. The reader, but not the characters, can see the true nature of Felix Shaw and as a result, when the inevitable happens and Shaw becomes abusive, we are not surprised. We saw it coming, what we didnt see coming was the fact that we the readers are now as implicated and trapped as Claire, forced to witness what is happening behind closed doors and yet helpless to intervene. This is masterful writing and one can see instantly why Harrower was at the time of publication compared with Patrick White.

This was a thoroughly engaging and absorbing read. It is a clearly Australian voice, without once drawing attention to itself as such. In a country which defines itself in relation to the Bush, while over seventy percent of its citizens are urban dwellers, this book shows us that great drama can happen in even the nicest suburbs.


Harrower, E, 2012, The Watch Tower, 1st edn, Text Classics, Melbourne.

Sometimes fiction uncovers a common experience and tells a story about it before the vocabulary exists to describe whats happening and link people going through it together.

Laura and Clare are sisters who seem destined to be victims. Their father died; their mother abandoned them. Laura cares for the younger Clare.

Things look set to change with the arrival of the older Felix, who seems caring, attentive and successful. But hes no knight in shining armour. After marrying Laura, his alcoholism surfaces and hes unstable, abusive and controlling.

The Watch Tower shows the challenges of living with an addict, and the choices people make to remain victims. Harrower does this, as Joan London says in the introduction, before we had the words misogyny, abuse and co-dependence to label these experiences.

This book is set in Sydney, Australia in the 1940s at the outbreak of the Second World War, and was published in 1966. This is the first Australian novel Ive read from the 1960s and the first describing Australia in the 1940s.

It deserves its place as a Text Classic and on the list of the Top 50 [Australian] Books You Cant Put Down.