I went into this book prepared — or so I thought. I knew that the ending was going to be ambiguous, and that the book was less about the disappearance of the girls at Hanging Rock and more about the impact of the disappearance on the people left behind.

And the book does start off that way, too. Very quickly, author Joan Lindsay introduces the premise of the book and the disappearance of the students (and one teacher) at Hanging Rock. Then you see how fellow students deal with the incident, how the school's head mistress deals with the incident, as well as how the locals deal with it. I think my interest in the central mystery is sustained all the way up through Mike's search for the missing people. All of that is fine.

Then the book takes a sharp turn for Crap Town. I largely have zero recollection of the rest of the book after that point. It meanders and goes absolutely nowhere. Even though it is supposed to be less about the mystery and more about the impact it has on the people, I didn't quite expect there to be zero impact at all. There's a abrupt little romance between Mike and Irma, whom he discovers and rescues from the Hanging Rock, then some employees quit and somehow die in some fire, and then a student who decides to kill herself by leaping off a tower. Very quickly you develop a sneaking suspicion that Lindsay was on some kind of hallucinogen, because these are not stories told by sober people.

If you need more proof that this was written by someone who's absolutely pulling shit out of her ass, you really only need to read the excised final chapter of the book. Based on my research, when the book was initially written, the author wrote a final chapter that basically explained everything. The editor read the final chapter, advised against its inclusion, and the author agreed. After the book was released and became 'an instant classic' for whatever reason, the publisher thought it would be good to publish the final chapter as a standalone book — and they did. They called it The Secret of Hanging Rock, presumably for those dissatisfied with the main book's ending and wanted answers.

So here's what actually happens in the book, and you can see why 1) the editor wanted it to be cut out 2) why the author was clearly out of her mind 3) this book is an utter waste of your time:

The chapter opens with Edith fleeing back to the picnic area while Miranda, Irma, and Marion push on. Each girl begins to experience dizziness and feel as if she is "being pulled from the inside out." A woman suddenly appears climbing the rock in her underwear, shouting "Through!", and then faints. This woman is not referenced by name and is apparently a stranger to the girls, yet the narration suggests she is Miss McCraw. Miranda loosens the woman's corset to help revive her. Afterwards, the girls remove their own corsets and throw them off the cliff. The recovered woman points out that the corsets appear to hover in mid-air as if stuck in time, and that they cast no shadows. She and the girls continue together. The girls then encounter what is described as "a hole in space," by which they physically enter a crack in the rock following a lizard; the unnamed woman transforms into a crab and disappears into the rock. Marion follows her, then Miranda, but when Irma's turn comes, a balanced boulder (the hanging rock) slowly tilts and blocks the way. The chapter ends with Irma "tearing and beating at the gritty face on the boulder with her bare hands."

So yeah, fuck this book.