I finally tracked down a copy of Tricia Vilkinas's book The Thesis Journey: Tales of Personal Triumph. It is subtitled 'Students' personal accounts of their research passage'. The students concerned are mostly older, and their degrees seem to be mostly in business/management areas.
One thing that is concerning to me was that in Vilkinas's summary chapter 'So what does it all mean?' there is no mention of Alison Lee's work. As Lee has been writing about the PhD experience in Aus for more than ten years it's hard to imagine how one could write anything in the area without reference to her.