Secrets and Puzzles: Patricia Carlon's Interior World

Abstract

Patricia Carlon (1927–2002), an Australian crime fiction writer, only became known in her home country towards the end of her life, when her novels – published first in the United Kingdom and then the United States – were republished in Australia in the 1990s. Although she authored eleven suspense novels, as well as at least forty romance stories in Australian magazines, critical attention to her output has been meagre. Carlon was profoundly deaf from the age of 11, but her deafness only became widely known following her death.

Deafness is sometimes associated with secrecy and "passing", or hiding one’s disability. Carlon’s choice of genre – the suspense novel – was likely influenced by her deafness, as were a number of her themes, such as alienation, darkness, entrapment and communication. Additionally, Carlon used a range of pseudonyms in her early romance writing, again highlighting a connection to secrecy. Despite Carlon’s prolific output and masterful crafting of her novels, little critical attention has been paid to her work, nor how it was shaped by deafness. Susan Wyndham gestured to the influence of Carlon’s hearing loss in her obituary of Carlon, but no other critic has contemplated the links between Carlon’s deafness and her writing, and none in detail. This essay attempts to redress the neglect of Carlon’s writing in literary criticism. In particular, it considers why Carlon hid her deafness and how this influenced her choice of genre and themes. In doing so, it aims to draw attention to the way that disability is not a deficit, but a source of lateral thinking and creativity.