Jill Ker Conway (1934–2018)

Few things seem further from North America than Australia. Not only is it half-a-world away, but the culture varies dramatically. Conway grew up in the back-country of Australia where she often did not regularly see other families and neighbors were tens-of-miles away. That simple start, told as well as it is in this book, sparks the reader’s interest. The fact that she ended up at Harvard by the end of the book should pique even more interest.

Conway details her life in the outback, her show more transition to a private school in Sydney, and her undergraduate days at the University of Sydney. As such, this memoir is a real-life coming-of-age tale. She describes how she fell in love with the field of history and decided to dedicate her life to being a scholar of women’s history.

Her writing style is impressive and entertaining. Not only does she describe things accurately and with a healthy distance, but she also picks interesting details that bring her world alive to the reader. Obviously well-read, she shows the character that brought her from an oppressive environment towards eventually becoming a leader in women’s education.

I find personal inspiration from feminists like Conway. Often, men are not encouraged to find their own place in the world like many women (especially ambitious women) are forced to. As such, the narrative of male lives often does not involve the quest for being and existence. However, I find that I, too, have those questions. Conway’s tale gives me some more rungs to hang my experience on, and for that, I am grateful. show less

This is probably the best memoir I have read to date. I find myself drawn to memoirs to gather insight into how people achieved their goals or philosophy or overall situation in life, but am frustrated by tales that whine, that pat themselves on the back, that blame others, that name drop and gossip, or that don't reflect on what they learned or how. This was not any of that.
The first third of the book covers her life on the plains of Australia on a sheep farm. The life was hard, but all show more she knew. The family was fairly isolated and very dependent on each other. She identifies her relationship with her parents and her brothers, admittedly adding in insights that she obtained upon reflection as an adult, but which did not take away from the immediacy of the account. Her dealings and descriptions of the few people that they had contact with and the rare trips that they took off the ranch gave a real feel for her life. The weather played an enormous role in the well-being of the ranch and that came across loud and clear.
When the death of her father and the extended years of drought send them to Sydney, we get a different perspective; how an intelligent, socially inept child attempts to adapt to city life and other children. Conway looks at what were her actions and what she was trying to do and reflects on what she did right and what was wrong. She is not sugar coating, blaming or dramatizing, but trying to understand what happened and how it got her to the next situation.
The last third of the book deals with her coming to terms with her intellect, her education, her search for a personal philosophy and an understanding of her country and her place in it. Her strained relationship with her mother, her ambition and ambivalence toward Australian society converge in an understanding that she does not fit into Australia and must leave despite her love for the land of the outback. I have never read a more thoughtful memoir and look forward to reading her follow-up, True North. show less

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Wow. Once I got going, I really couldn't put it down. It's a really impressive autobiography, of a woman growing up in Australia before, during and after the second world war, as a child on a remote sheep station (the Coorain of the title, which some diligent Googling locates here), and then at school and university in Sydney, suffering the deaths of her father and brother and the slow decline of her mother. Yet at the same time it's a story of show more empowerment and enlightement, of spiritual, intellectual and moral development, as the young Jill realises what it means to be a white woman in Australia, and later to be a white Australian woman in the rest of the world.

Her descriptions of the landscape of western New South Wales are lyrical, which makes her account of the long years of drought that killed her father and their lifestyle all the more gruelling. (Six decades on, things weren't much better). Then, after the move to Sydney (she was eleven), she is compelling on the human landscape, both of the silent girl from the bush suddenly immersed in the ways of the city, and of the daughter struggling with her mother's ambitions and her own aspirations. The ending, of course, only points to new beginnings.

I confess I know very little about Australia, despite my four and a half years working for its former foreign minister. While I've enjoyed my dabbling in Peter Carey's novels, I have to say that they did not whet my enthusiasm anything like as much as The Road from Coorain has. show less

Jill Ker Conway has left us with quite a trilogy of autobiographies. In so doing, she has divided her life into thirds – growing up on the Australian outback, coming of age in North-American academe, and gaining a feminist voice as president of the elite Smith College.

This work examines her experiences at Smith College. She poured her soul into learning to articulate an authentically feminine institutional voice in a world of coeducation. Instead of seeing women’s education as fading show more from the world, she embraced the single-gender nature of her task and emphasized women’s roles in virtually all fields.

As an educated male, I’ve often had mixed feelings about feminism. I am 100% for women’s advancement in society. Like Conway, I find women provide a unique and strong contribution in the history of just about every sphere of human activity. However, I am uncomfortable with a feminism that seeks the advancement of women through the denigration of men’s roles. Like Conway, I think we do better when we march and reason together.

This work will leave some readers feeling empty. It focuses on Conway’s leadership of an elite academic institution. While authentic, it is relatively devoid of drama. Those used to following plot twists won’t find much here. Conway’s perspective is about active self-expression and self-development.

After reading this trilogy of autobiographies, I find that I like Conway. She seems full of life and like someone who I’d like to have dinner with sometime. Her perspective of life is one which all people – not just women – can gain from. She is an intellectual (as am I), and those who appreciate a vibrant life of the mind will appreciate this trilogy. show less