Robert Lukens

So while Sullivan was in this hulking metal coffin-shaped object, that echoes back to experiences that Frank had had as a child in Hungary.

enclosed in these spaces, hiding.

And so, Robert, tell us about that background, the history of Frank's family and how that's entwined into a story of Perth.

On Joan London's The Golden Age with guests Bernadette Brennan and Robert Lukens here on ABC Radio National's The Bookshelf.

I'm Kate Evans and every week with Cassie McCullough and you, we come together to talk books.

Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career.

Why not end our bookshelf summer season with an iconic Australian novel?

It's been a film too, of course, and I noticed that it's also on stage right now in Sydney's Belvoir Theatre.

And Miles Franklin herself is a name we often hear if we follow bookish things because Australia's most prestigious literary award is named for her as its benefactor and the Stella Prize is named for her too.

So in August of last year we turned to both the woman and the novel with the help of memoirist Maggie McKellar and historian David Hutt.

And how she breathed of the Australian countryside is what we're going to talk about.

That was the ABC broadcaster John Thompson introducing a documentary he made on Miles Franklin in 1959.

But we're going to concentrate on her 1901 novel, My Brilliant Career.

But Maggie, Maggie McKellar, what does Miles Franklin mean to you?

But I wonder if before we get to this character of Sibylla, I mean, David Hunt, Miles Franklin started writing in the 1890s, which is where this book, My Brilliant Career, is set.

What's so important?

What's so interesting about that period in Australian history, the 1890s?

But maybe we should pull back to My Brilliant Career, published in 1901, even though, as you say, it was read at different times and over different generations.

I mean, Maggie, this is a book that you have read many times, but I know for Cassie, David and I, this was our first reading of it.

And I was surprised by how vivid and lively it was, particularly at the beginning.