Inseparable Elements: Dame Mary Durack
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: November 2021
Genre: Non-Fiction
Author Mary Durack is best known for titles such as Kings in Grass Castles (1959) and Sons in the Saddle (1983), which tell the story of her family’s cattle empire in the Kimberley, the homestead of which was famously submerged under Lake Argyle after the Ord River dam was built. Now comes Durack’s own story, as seen through the eyes of her daughter Patsy Millett, and drawn from an extensive family archive of diaries, letters, manuscripts and other ephemera. In equal parts biography, family history and a who’s who of the Australian literary scene during the mid- to late-twentieth century, Inseparable Elements: Dame Mary Durack is a comprehensive portrayal of the author. The book explores numerous aspects of Mary Durack’s full life and complex family relationships, including that of her marriage to aviator Horrie Miller, as well as insights about her writing. Inseparable Elements will be of particular interest to readers who are familiar with the Durack dynasty, intrigued about the stories behind her published work, or curious to know what she really thought about her peers in the writing community.