Autobiography or fiction? This question has shadowed the work of enigmatic Australian author Eve Langley since her first novel, The Pea Pickers, was published in 1942. Almost immediately after, Eve was committed to a mental asylum in Auckland where she remained for more than seven years, separated from her three young children. Hailed as a tour de force, The Pea Pickers was based on Eve's real-life experiences in the 1920s and tells the story of two feisty sisters who wander the Australian countryside dressed as men seeking work and adventure. But woven subtly into this brilliant and funny coming-of-age story is the portrait of a complex family constellation: a masculine mother, an evil father, the narrator's adoring sister, and a perplexing heroine who adopts the name of Steve Hart, one of the Ned Kelly gang who was known to masquerade as a woman. Drawing on contemporary evidence, Eve Langley and The Pea Pickers offers a biography that unravels the life and the fiction, and the result is a fascinating and ultimately poignant tale.
For more than a decade, Helen Vines trawled the archives to accomplish what many have viewed as an impossible task: separating the facts from the fiction of Eve Langley's life. Helen is a writer and editor who has been published in industry, education and union journals including Australian Educator and HR Monthly. Her first published creative essay was in Island Magazine and she co-authored Status and Reward: The History of Industrial Representation of Professional Engineers in Australia 1946-1996 (1996) with Dr Brian Lloyd. Helen completed a BA (Hons) and DipEd at the University of Melbourne, and an MA and PhD at the University of Tasmania. She has raised three wonderful children: Chloë, Harry and Bonnie.
Eve Langley's strange story, in all its contradictory versions, its secrets and silences, has baffled many literary sleuths. Helen Vines disentangles facts from fantasies with patience and sensitivity. The author of that much-loved story of outback Australia The Pea Pickers emerges as a tragically flawed yet resilient writer whose distinctive talents came to being within a tempestuous life. -- Brenda Niall
Such skilful literary detective work. Helen Vines untangles fact and fiction in her search for the truth about Eve Langley, one of twentieth-century Australia's most astonishing and misunderstood writers. This sensitive biography teases apart the myths surrounding a writer who never escaped the complicated legacy of her dazzling first novel. In doing so, Eve Langley and The Pea Pickers furthers our understanding of the relationship between family trauma, mental illness and creativity. -- Cathy Perkins
