‘La torre vigía’ (Impedimenta) has taken 56 years to be translated into Spanish. And yet it is a remarkable novel, the work of Australian Elizabeth Harrower (1928-2020), who died last July at the age of 92. This story of two sisters who suffer, first, the death of their father and, then, the abandonment of their mother, was the one that launched Harrower to fame -in his country-, who already had three published novels, has influenced authors like the Irish Eimear McBride. It has been one of the best kept secrets of his country (in the US it was not published until 2013).
Elizabeth Harrower
Wrapped in a permanent tension – for some, even ‘psychological terror’ – the plot reflects the helplessness of the two girls and how the eldest, Laura, receives a marriage proposal from the owner of the company where she works. Thus, while their carefree and idle mother decides to return to Great Britain (Sydney is provincial; London, cosmopolitan), the daughters will stay in Australia, forming a family with Felix Shaw, Laura’s new husband, apparently, to eyes of society, “a good arrangement.” Determined, self-centered, even with some traits of kindness, Felix will reveal, first subtly, mechanisms of domination and control that progressively turn the sisters’ lives into a nightmare that is less and less larvae. Apart from some outbursts of alcohol, Felix’s violence is never evident, it alternates with moments of joy and, therefore, it is much more insidious. In the eyes of the outside world, the Shaws’ is a home that works.
Harrower weaves an oppressive atmosphere, and also draws the contradictions and the different routes that the two sisters will take, under the same roof. One will end up being an accomplice of the abuser, while the other will seek his freedom. Harrower’s works are not too many, as he suffered a creative drought in 1970 that lasted four decades. But its five novels are enough to place it in a prominent place, for its psychological depth and subtlety. The fact that it narrated the dark side of relationships, the invisible domain of man, has made it fashionable again among young readers.
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