What an absolute treat. Miles Franklin, the lost years is a beautifully researched book that unpacks the life of such an important Australian writer. There are , of course, many biographies of Stella Miles Franklin but none that seem so completely in sync with who she was and the times that she lived through. Her success, whilst immediate with My Brilliant Career was not always easy after that. Her relationship with Henry Lawson and other literary figures reads as if told by Miles herself. She was determined to not to marry and passionate to support the rights of women in so many ways in Australia, the United States and London. Her Undercover work as a servant in Sydney and Melbourne are fascinating documents of the treatment of women in the early 1900s. Her little known time in America is poignant as she carts her unpublished manuscripts in her case as she moves around finally finding work in editing a Labour Journal. Her own family’s tragedy with the death of her sister , a letter sent to her contains such terrible news are all beautifully portrayed by Kerrie Davies. It ends all too suddenly with a coda. I wish there had been more.

This novel contains lots of fascinating facts and details about a specific time in Miles Franklin's life. Davies has obviously done her research and has turned everything she has read and learnt into a fictionalised account of Franklin's life. Even though it include many extracts and lines from real-life letters and journals, this is biofiction not a biography or non-fiction,

The mismatch between my expectations for a literary biography and the biofiction to hand affected the way I read this book, which I probably would have enjoyed a whole lot more if I had started it with 'biofiction' or even 'creative nonfiction' in mind.