Fishing in the Styx. Ruth Park. 1993.

Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland, newly married and determined to earn their living as writers, submitted story outlines to radio stations, ideas for articles and fiction to newspapers and magazines, and accepted whatever freelance jobs came their way. 

Fishing in the Styx is the tender portrait of a partnership, in life and in work, between two talented, volatile people, sharing their dreams and disappointments and rejoicing in each other’s triumphs. It was a partnership cruelly cut short by D’Arcy’s death. Ruth writes movingly about this dark time, and the need to accept and detach, which led her to study Zen Buddhism and to live for a while on tranquil Norfolk Island.