High Valley

High Valley is available from Ligature Publishing. Click here to purchase.

Written by Charmian Clift and George Johnston in 1947, at a time when they were newly in love and Charmian was pregnant with their first child, High Valley was a true collaboration. Although the book’s setting was based on Johnston’s wartime journey through the high mountains of Tibet, he would later say:

If there is any quality in this book it is the work of my wife. She is responsible for characterisation and emotional content. I was the journalist who provided the substance, she was the artist who provided the burnish.

In fact, for much of the novel’s production time, the couple were living apart. Unable to find accommodation in Sydney, where George had a full time job as a journalist, Charmian stayed at her parents’ Kiama cottage, Hilldrop, and wrote the book by herself during the week. On weekends, George would catch the train down to join her, and the couple would write together. Charmian’s sister Margaret gives a vivid picture of these visits:

George and Charmian would be sitting at the old deal table … each with a typewriter, going for their lives. George would be typing away, typing away, typing away, almost singing as he’s going, typing away, give it a little thought, puffing cigarettes, typing away, typing away.

Charmian would do a little bit, think, tear it up, chuck it in the wastepaper basket, get up and walk around, stalk around, and so on, but when she put it down, it was right. And eventually she’d pass over what she’d written to George.

He’d read it, he’d pass over what he’d written—he’d have this much for her to read, but she’d have a little bit like that for him to read, you see. And then they’d put their heads together and say, ‘Now what are we going to keep and what are we going to cut? And there might be a stony silence for a while, or one of them might say something rude, but they’d come together. And it would be, ‘All right, we’ll do it this way!’

In May 1948, High Valley won the Sydney Morning Herald novel prize — one of the very few literary prizes at that time. The Sun newspaper headline declared JOURNALIST, WIFE WIN NOVEL PRIZE. As Charmian wryly observed, ‘Most people didn’t think I’d had much to do with it.’ Later in life Charmian would often say that sometimes you got the prize first and had to work for it afterwards. She would pay for the High Valley prize for the rest of her life.

The novel was published in Sydney by Angus & Robertson in 1949, and in mid 1950 the prestigious British firm Faber & Faber brought out their edition, to glowing reviews. American publisher Bobbs-Merrill spent $US10,000 on the promotion campaign for their edition.

Photograph L: Charmian and George on their Kiama ‘honeymoon’, summer 1947-8

Photograph R: Hilldrop the North Kiama cottage where Charmian’s parents lived in the 1940s, and where Charmian and George wrote High Valley. This was 200 metres up the hill from the cottage where Charmian was born. Photograph taken 2019.