Ric Throssell (1922–1999)
Autore di Wild Weeds and Windflowers
Opere di Ric Throssell
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1922-05-10
- Data di morte
- 1999-04-20
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- Australia
- Luogo di nascita
- Greenmount, Western Australia, Australia
- Luogo di morte
- Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
- Istruzione
- Clermont Teachers' College
Wesley College - Attività lavorative
- diplomat
playwright
novelist
poet
biographer
memoirist - Relazioni
- Prichard, Katharine Susannah (mother)
Throssell, Karen (daughter) - Organizzazioni
- Australian Army (WWII)
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
Statistiche
- Opere
- 9
- Utenti
- 55
- Popolarità
- #295,340
- Voto
- 3.5
- Recensioni
- 1
- ISBN
- 18
As a keen reader of KSP's fiction and of Nathan Hobby's recent biography The Red Witch (2022, rel="nofollow" target="_top">see my review) I found it very moving to read Throssell's tribute to his mother. It's a straightforward literary biography, placing her books in the chronology of her life, quoting her poetry and her letters to supplement her lifeline. But because of the tragic circumstances of his father's suicide, and of the impact of her political activity on his own career, Wild Weeds and Windflowers is unusually intimate and legitimately defensive in telling her story.
Ric Throssell was only a boy when his father, the war hero Hugo (Jim) Throssell VC (1884-1933) committed suicide during the Depression. KSP was overseas in London after a research tour of the USSR at the time and learned the news from a press report. She was shattered by the loss of the love of her life, and Hugo's financial imprudence meant that the family was now very hard up, with only a meagre pension and substantial debts. The generosity of his father's military friends enabled Ric to go to boarding school, but while he does not dwell on this mournful period from his own point-of-view, no reader can help but imagine how dreadful it must have been for the boy, shocked and bereft while waiting weeks for his mother's return by sea. (It would have taken 7-8 weeks at least.)
Instead he writes about how KSP kept her feelings to herself.
There is a world of emotion in that one word 'later'.
There are numerous references to KSP's kindness and generosity, sometimes with gifts of money that she could not afford. But when Throssel writes of his own feelings, it's to illustrate her tenderness. In 1934, travelling steerage across the Great Australian Bight from Fremantle to Melbourne, Ric suffered dreadfully from seasickness (as most people do on that infamous stretch of water!) but his mother tended to him with loving care:
KSP threw herself into work, writing desperately to bring in some income from short stories.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/08/05/wild-weeds-and-windflowers-the-life-and-lett...… (altro)