Fiction

The Drover’s Wife: The legend of Molly Johnson by Leah Purcell

Item: The Drover’s Wife
Author: Ellen Van Neerven

by Ellen van Neerven •

March 2020, no. 419

Hamish Hamilton, $32.99 pb, 288 pp

Fiction

The Drover’s Wife: The legend of Molly Johnson by Leah Purcell

by Ellen van Neerven •

March 2020, no. 419

Leah Purcell has described how her lifelong fascination with Henry Lawson’s iconic 1892 short story provided her with abundant creative ammunition. Her mother read her the story when she was five; it held a special place for them both. ‘I’d say the famous last line: “Ma, I won’t never go drovin ... she’d tear up”.’

If you haven’t read Lawson’s story or need a refresher: a nameless woman is left by her drover husband in an isolated hut with their four young children. Engulfed by sundry threats, she spies a snake. She and her dog Alligator sit up all night to guard the sleeping children.

Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven (born in Meanjin (Brisbane) in 1990) is an award-winning writer and editor of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) and Dutch heritage. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Ellen’s second book, a collection of poetry, Comfort Food, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize and highly commended for the 2016 Wesley Michel Wright Prize. Throat is Ellen’s second poetry collection, a May 2020 release.

(Photograph by Anna Jacobson)