Yarn Spinners A Story of Friendship, Politics and a Shared Commitment to a Distinctive Australian Literature, Woven Through the Letters of Dymphna Cusack, Florence James, Miles Franklin and Their Congenials

Dymphna Cusack, Miles Franklin and Florence James come alive on these pages through their friendships, their aspirations, their passions and achievements, their disappointments, insecurities and triumphs. In Yarn Spinners Marilla North tells the tale of their personal and professional lives through their correspondence, meticulously curated, edited and woven together with subtle narrative links. Editing is too modest a word for what Marilla North has done in this trove of letters, artfully assembled from thousands she recovered in a labour extending over 12 years. She has topped and tailed and interwoven them, then filled the gaps with narrative and notes, and in the process created a unique literary form. As the story flows from one to the other, the effect is, as North hoped, like a novel with three unfailingly lively female characters. --Barry Oakley.