Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of the most intense, original and highly regarded psychological fiction of the twentieth century. Then she abruptly stopped writing in the 1970s and became one of the most puzzling mysteries of Australian literature. Why didn't she continue? Harrower gave elusive answers to friends and interviewers, and only since her death in 2020 has a deeper search been possible.

When Harrower's four novels were brought back into print between 2012 and 2014, followed by a novel she had withdrawn from her publisher in 1971 and a collection of her short stories, a renaissance of admiration followed. In this engrossing biography, Susan Wyndham grapples with the questions that remained unanswered, the dynamics of Harrower's circles of famous friends, and her remarkable books and their timeless dissections of the human heart.

'Elizabeth Harrower: The woman in the watch tower is the first (and perhaps final) word on one of Australia's most brilliant and bedevelling writers. Like Harrower's, Wyndham's prose is meticulously observed, emotionally attuned and full of grace, insight and vision. It's a fantastic achievement.' Dominic Amerena

'This is an extraordinary biography of one of the finest, and most important, Australian writers, Elizabeth Harrower. In a braiding so skilled you can't see it, Susan Wyndham takes us from Harrower's life into her work and her friendships, and then back into her work and life. This is a deceptively simple, beautifully detailed, psychologically acute portrait worthy of its subject.' Anna Funder

'This is a wonderful book. It gives us the complexities of Harrower's life and of her fascinating character so nave and at the same time so intelligent, her prickly diffidence coupled with a kind of gormless passion. And it sets her compellingly into the decades when modern Australian literature was coming into being. An indispensable contribution to Australian writing.' Brigitta Olubas