Australian Women Writers Gen 3 Week 12-18 Jan. 2020
The Drums Go Bang, a joint memoir of their early married life in Sydney during WWII (which is not mentioned) by writers Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland, has been one of my favourite books these last 50 or 60 years (my review). Sue/Whispering Gums has reviewed it for AWW Gen 3 Week
Whispering Gums
Volume 1 of Ruth Park’s autobiography, A fence around the cuckoo, … was published in 1992. The drums go bang, written collaboratively by Park and Niland, was published in 1956 and covers the first five or so of these years to just after the publication in 1948 of The harp in the south. Read on …
Wonderful artwork on the cover:)
LikeLike
Park’s drawings are very expressive.
LikeLike
Did she do them? I didn’t know that! Or would that be her daughter Deborah Niland who created wonderful picture books for children?
LikeLike
Ruth Park did. I have a Penguin with the illustrations which I’ll put with the Stead.
LikeLike
An excellent artist called Phil Taylor did the illustrations for this particular edition of The Drums Go Bang. Ruth Park did not illustrate her own work.
LikeLike
Ms Niland. Thanks for commenting. I had and loved that same hardback edition as Sue (Whispering Gums) has, when I was still at school, 50 years ago and I have always thought the illustrator was Ruth Park.
If you’re interested, here’s my own review from 5 years ago –
https://theaustralianlegend.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/the-drums-go-bang-ruth-park-and-darcy-niland/
LikeLike
I enjoyed this discussion. The comments are as much fun as the post.
LikeLike
I always enjoy comments. On my posts and on everyone else’s. I think this morning Sue and I mightn’t have been fully awake, but now I’m in Adelaide I can relax and put my feet up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] Books Dorothy Cottrell, The Mysterious Box, Jessica White Park & Niland, The Drums Go Bang, Whispering Gums Monday Musings on Christina Stead (2), Whispering Gums (due Mon night, […]
LikeLike
[…] Tell Morning This (Tennant), Say Not to Death (Cusack) and The Drums go Bang (Park) you get a pretty good idea of the housing shortage, and resulting squalid, crowded rooming […]
LikeLike
[…] recommend, whenever he can, the Park/Niland memoir The Drums Go Bang, which we have both reviewed (Bill’s review) (my review). I enjoyed her autobiographies, but The drums go bang is very […]
LikeLike