Helen Vines on separating fact from fiction in 'Eve Langley and the Pea Pickers'

Good Reading Podcast

In 1942 Eve Langley published her first novel The Pea Pickers to critical acclaim. Hailed as a tour de force, it tells the story of two feisty sisters who wander the Australian countryside dressed as men.In Eve Langley and the Pea Pickers, Helen Vines deftly unravels the threads of a life story that became curiously entangled with the author's works of fiction. This compelling new biography paints a portrait of a complex family constellation plagued by mental illness and obscured by a veil of secrecy.In this episode, Gregory Dobbs chats to Helen Vines about piecing together a story from previously unexamined letters and repositioning The Pea Pickers as a landmark in Australian literature.