Ep 766 - Picnic at Hanging Rock, by Joan Lindsay

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

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Craig (0:05)

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SPEAKER_4 (1:42)

cmintmobile.com While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus these are books you should have read by now.

Craig (2:19)

Hey everybody, welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. And my name is Craig.

Andrew (2:25)

And my name is Andrew.

Craig (2:27)

I'm going on a picnic, and I'm bringing a renowned work of Australian fiction.

Andrew (2:34)

Okay, I'm going on a picnic, and I will never be seen again, so it's not important what I'm bringing with me.

Craig (2:44)

More of what you're taking away from the rest of us, I suppose. Andrew, what did you read for this week's episode of our show, where each week, one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it?

Andrew (2:56)

Oh, I read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay.

Craig (3:00)

Ah, yes, the Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Andrew (3:02)

Yeah, a book that I had not really heard of, but you suggested it as a possibility for the show based on like a blank check episode about the 1975 movie adaptation.

Craig (3:15)

It had come up on a list of other stuff, and I was like, oh, that thing, that sounded interesting.

Andrew (3:22)

Yeah, and this book had not even been published in the US until like relatively recently, not officially anyway. At least that was my, that was what I read.

Craig (3:31)

Sure, okay.

Andrew (3:32)

There was like a Penguin version that came out. I'm trying to...

Craig (3:34)

I think the Penguin version was around the release of the film, I believe.

Andrew (3:39)

Could be mistaken. Received its first publication in, it was imported for sale in the US and then was published in the US in 2014 by Penguin Radio. So it was available in the US maybe before that.

Craig (3:50)

Yeah. But no, a like seminal work of Australian fiction and of Australian film making. We'll talk about that a little bit. Not too much. You can go listen to Blank Check for more about that.

But Lindsay herself, also not someone who wrote a lot of books. This is the book. If you are a Joan Lindsay head. I mean, there are a few others.

Andrew (4:13)

Yeah, she did a few other things, including like one children's book that came out, a couple years before she died.

Craig (4:18)

Yes, yes.

Andrew (4:19)

But yeah, not a huge library of stuff from her.

Craig (4:23)

No. So we'll dive in and then Andrew can tell us all the yummy foods that these girls who are surely all safe ate at their picnic. Lindsay, born Joan Beckett Weigel in 1896, passed away in 1984

I was reading a Lit Hub article about this book and they remarked that Joan Lindsay herself lived a sort of time warp, born under the reign of Queen Victoria and publishing her first novel during the Vietnam War. Just love that. Just love the 20th century as a real. Yeah, a lot of stuff. Where did you come from? Where did you go?