PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK by Joan Lindsay

The author described writing this book very quickly after a particularly vivid dream, and I totally get it.  It tells about some girls at an Australian boarding school in the late nineteenth century who go to a picnic at a local beauty spot.  Three of them plus a teacher go on a short walk, and SPOILER ALERT   only one of them returns. They are searched for, but never found.  That’s pretty much it.  

This sounds kind of annoying – you never find out what happened, it is like an open-ended mystery – but it is actually weirdly compelling, and the images have stuck with me for a long time since reading it.  Kind of like a dream. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *