Why I am thankful for feminism: ‘Restless Dolly Maunder’ by Kate Grenville
Kate Grenville’s latest offering is a novel woven from family stories of her grandmother, who was born into rural poverty towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Readers of The Secret River will recognise Dolly as the granddaughter of Sarah Wiseman, the daughter of that earlier book’s fictionalised protagonist based on Solomon Wiseman. Solomon, the author’s ancestor, was an emancipated convict who settled in the upper reaches of the Hawkesbury River in a spot later named for him – Wiseman’s Ferry.
The novel describes in painful detail the restrictions on women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially (but not exclusively) for poor women.
The small worlds they inhabited, the never-ending chores it was assumed they’d be responsible for simply because they were born female; the limited options for their futures – marriage, or spinsterhood while working as a nurse or teacher.
Girls were of no account, you learned that early on. Good enough to make the bread and milk the cow, and later on you’d look after the children. But no woman was ever going to be part of the real business of the world.
Restless Dolly Maunder eBook location 14 of 293Dolly is born wanting more, wanting movement in her life when the world tells her she must be still, be satisfied with her lot. Whip smart yet denied an education past 14 years, and lucky to get that, being young enough to benefit from new government laws that required all children under 14 to regularly attend school.
As always with this author, the prose is uncannily evocative: Grenville has the ability to climb right inside her characters’ heads and make the reader feel they are there as well. Simple language but always the exact right word chosen for the right moment in the story.
Dolly is a prickly character, not particularly likeable at any point in the story. But the author’s skill is to make us care about her anyway. There is an especially poignant moment in her author’s note, describing a childhood encounter between the young Kate and her grandmother, where she looks back with empathy and wishes in retrospect that she had responded differently. I am sure we have all experienced such moments, haven’t we?
Dolly experiences the ups and downs of economy, drought, commodity prices, war, Depression; all of which impact on her and her family.These are factors beyond her control but she brings to bear her characteristic decisiveness (and restlessness) as she tries to respond to these big picture challenges.
All you could say was, you were born into a world that made it easy for you or made it hard for you, and all you could do was stumble along under the weight of whatever you’d been given to carry. No wonder at the end of it you were tired, and sad. But glad to have done it all, even the mistakes.
Restless Dolly Maunder loc 281-282This book made me feel, once again, deeply thankful for the achievements of feminism that have allowed women in the western world, at least, to move beyond the small worlds prescribed for them.
She thought of all the women she’d ever known, and all their mothers before them, and the mothers before those mothers, locked into a place where they couldn’t move. My generation was like the hinge, she thought. The door had been shut tight, and when it started to swing open, my generation was the hinge that it had to be forced around on, one surface grinding over another. No wonder it was painful.
Restless Dolly Maunder loc 281We have a long way to travel yet, and so many women around the world still experience difficulties and disadvantages because they are female. Restless Dolly Maunder shows us why that is not acceptable.
Restless Dolly Maunder was published by Text Publishing in July 2023
Connections: ‘The Remarkable Mrs Reibey’ by Grantlee Kieza
I’d added Grantlee Kieza’s biography of the woman on the Australian $20 note to my ‘Must Read’ list from the moment I heard about it.
The reason?
Apart from the obvious (my abiding interest in Australian history and especially women’s history), I have three points of connection with the subject, Mary Reibey:
1. She hailed originally from near Manchester in England, where my ancestor Elizabeth Lee was also born and raised,
2. Like another of my ancestors, Mary’s crime which had her transported to Australia was the theft of a horse, and
3. She was a contemporary of yet another ancestor, Jane Longhurst. Like Mary, Jane was an emancipated convict in early colonial Sydney who ‘made good’, managing business affairs and a large family within the male-dominated world of nineteenth century Sydney.Mary showed her redoubtable spirit from an early age, running away from a position as maid in a boarding school and in a flight of youthful fantasy, stealing a horse which she thought would be her ticket to a financially independent life.
Of course she was discovered, arrested and tried for the crime; at first receiving the death sentence, later commuted to transportation to the penal colony of NSW. The startling thing about her time in gaol was that she’d been dressed as a boy – and she managed to keep her sex hidden from her male cellmates in a crowded prison! In my view that would take some chutzpah, not to mention ingenuity.
She arrived in the colony full of trepidation as to what life in this frightening place might have in store for a youngster just fifteen years old.
The author paints a fascinating and vivid picture of convict life in Sydney and Parramatta : housing, clothing, rations, and living and working conditions, along with the many larger-than-life characters that peopled the early days of the colonial period.
The class system of Britain was transported here along with their unwanted criminals, and this is seen in attitudes by free settlers towards the convicts.
Also, people in authority struggled to understand many behaviours of the convicts; why did they make such poor choices (such as getting drunk and fighting) which they must know would result in punishment? To middle class eyes this was inexplicable. Why would people jeopardise their futures in this way? To convicts, most of whom came from dire circumstances, having a good time while one could grab it was entirely sensible. Who knew when the next catastrophe could strike? You could die of a disease, accident or violence tomorrow. May as well enjoy tonight while you could.
Mary, however, kept her head down and out of trouble. She married Tom Reibey, a free settler with an entrepreneurial bent, who was involved in trade and real estate. They had a large family together, but Tom nominated his wife to manage the business dealings during his long absences from the colony on trading voyages. She was wife, mother, and trusted co-manager of the family’s business affairs.
After her husband’s death, Mary continued with the various business interests, shipping and trading, buying, selling and leasing real estate, amassing an even greater fortune.
She is the ‘remarkable’ Mrs Reibey because all this activity was at a time when work options for women were severely curtailed and no women were expected to see the inside of a board room or business negotiation. Much to the surprise of her fellow settlers, ‘Mrs Reibey’ proved to be a shrewd negotiator, driving a hard bargain, with a nose for the next opportunity. This was how one survived – even thrived – in the cut throat world of the colony.
I got a thrill from seeing my ancestor, Jane Roberts (nee Longhurst) mentioned along with Mary in the section describing the formation of the Bank Of New South Wales – the first bank in the colony. Jane and Mary were among a handful of women investors in that early bank, much to the surprise and confusion of their male counterparts, as the concept of women investors was a foreign one.
There are moments that made me smile, such as Mary answering a charge by a debtor that she was ‘no lady’ by hitting him over the head with her parasol!
There are also tender, heartwarming moments in the book, as when Mary fulfills a long-nursed ambition to make a return visit to her homeland, with emotional reunions with family members in the ‘old country.’ I found myself wondering how reunions between my convict and immigrant ancestors may have played out, should any of them had the wish and the resources to return to England.
The Remarkable Mrs Reibey is a comprehensive and engrossing portrayal of a colonial women who surely deserves her spot on the $20 note. Her portrait, depicting a grandmotherly round-faced woman with spectacles and a lace cap, belies the adventurous and headstrong spirit of the younger Mary, with the endurance and smarts to not only survive, but thrive, in a colonial environment that was well and truly stacked against women.
The Remarkable Mrs Reibey was published by HarperCollins Publishers in May 2023.
Australian stories: three new picture books
Three very different picture books here, all by Australian authors.
Giinagay Gaagal (Hello Ocean) by Gumbayngirr artist Melissa Greenwood (who also created My Little Barlaagany (Sunshine) among others.) It’s a celebration of the ocean and its pleasures: swimming, fishing, running on the sand, collecting pipis and shells. In the story the aunties share cultural knowledge and wisdom as well as fun:
But first, before walking on Country, we talk to the land
Giinagay Gaagal (Hello Ocean)
and let her know that we are here to play.
We are grateful for what she has to offer,
we promise to take care of her during our stay.I’m always delighted to see new books incorporating First Nations languages. It’s a gentle way to introduce young readers to the multiplicity of cultures and languages that flourished in Australia before colonisation, some of which are still in use or are being revived.
The illustrations are gorgeous, incorporating the colours of sea and sand.
Fans of Jackie French will welcome her latest picture book, The Turtle and the Flood, a companion to the wonderful The Fire Wombat. Fire and flood are the bookends of natural disaster events in this country, and our children experience them all too often.
Learning about how native animals have evolved to survive these events is one way of coming to understand the natural cycles of our land.
We are introduced to Myrtle the long necked turtle, who can sense a coming flood (even before the rains begin) and makes her long slow climb uphill to a safe spot, out of the reach of the water.
She is joined by others (snakes, wombats, water dragons, wallabies.) The animals are guided by Myrtle’s wisdom and understanding of her environment.
There are lovely soft illustrations by Danny Snell which bring Myrtle’s journey to colourful life.
The third book in my selection is a change of pace. The first in a new series featuring Bunny and Bird, How to Hatch a Dragon is a sweetly hilarious story about the importance of observation and paying attention. The two friends are so engrossed in the instruction booklet that came with their dragon egg that they completely miss most of the action!
Little ones will get the humour, as they can see in the pictures what’s going on behind Bunny and Bird’s backs.
Three new books to delight: Giinagay Gaagal, The Turtle and the Flood, and How to Hatch a Dragon are published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in September and October, 2023.
My thanks to the publishers for review copies.Startling: ‘The Visitors’ by Jane Harrison
Immediately this book opens, we know we are in for a startlingly different view of the British ships, sailing into Sydney harbour in 1788.
The First Nations people of the lands surrounding Sydney are portrayed in a rich cultural context (informative and easy to absorb within the story), however they have European names and wear modern European dress. What does this mean? What is happening here? We are left to wonder.
It is an effective device to ensure that readers approach this story with a different mindset than they might otherwise do. Especially if the readers have been raised in Australia, and grown up with the story of Captain Phillip planting the British flag in the sand of Sydney cove in the name of His Majesty King George.
Instead, we see the ships from a vantage point above the cove, where seven respected Elders, representatives of their various nations, have come together for a day to collectively decide what their response to these ‘visitors’ should be.
The cover blurb of the book reads:
1788, Gadigal country.
Eleven ships.
Seven Elders.
One day.They’ve got a big decision to make…
The VisitorsIt’s a brilliant premise and the reader is plunged into the many considerations and issues that the seven men need to take into account as they ponder their response to this unprecedented situation.
Some of the older men remember the time, eighteen years earlier, when similar ships had appeared and strange looking men disembarked. In their short time on land, those men had cut down trees, trampled precious clean water to mud, and took ridiculous amounts of seafood from the waters. But that time, those visitors left and did not return. Perhaps the same thing would happen again?
Each of the seven men representing their mob have their own backstory: a set of family, cultural and tribal circumstances that affect their behaviour and how they approach the discussion and voting. This allows the reader to see them first of all as people – with their own preoccupations and motivations.
I enjoyed the portrayal of the tensions, petty squabbles, and individual behaviours of the seven. It meant I could approach their story as I could that of any other people dealing with a sudden and unexpected arrival of uninvited visitors of their country.
Within the narrative of a long day of arguments, counter arguments and vote-taking, the author has woven in a great deal of beautifully described customary lore and traditions. It includes one of the best and easiest-to-understand explanations of songlines:
Songs, Joseph knows, are a living map of country – where the fresh water is, the good fishing spots, the whereabouts of steep crevices or marshy swamps and all of the other signposts, so you don’t get lost or travel the hard way. And all songs are three-dimensional, referring to the stars above and the earth and even below the seas. And the songs are always evolving and being shared. They are maps for all who need them to travel for food, for shelter or, like him, for business. And they are sung, because singing is the most effective way to memorise great swathes of data.
The Visitors, p33The use of modern expressions by the men also helps to bring us into our own time, with an understanding that these men represent a spectrum of life experiences and attitudes – much like today’s representatives in our modern parliaments.
There is a telling moment when the men are faced with the idea that perhaps, this time, the strangers won’t leave, and a great deal of irony as well-worn European-centrist ideas about ‘barbarism’, ‘a dying race’, ‘thieves’ ‘superior weapons’ and ‘capable of learning’ are turned on their head.
This book invites us to ask those ‘what if?’ questions: what if the First Nations peoples of Sydney had attacked in a concerted effort to rid their lands of these foreigners? What if the British had been able to listen and learn from the original inhabitants of the continent? What if the diseases brought by those ships had not wreaked such a terrible toll? So many things we can never know, but in the asking of the questions, there is learning to be had.
In a profound way, one of the men, Gary, sums up what was important for those Elders and still remains important today:
Just because they break lore, doesn’t mean we should. Then they’ve won, in a way, before even one spear has been thrown. I think we need to be good ancestors.What are the stories a good ancestor needs to create, to leave behind? Do we want our descendants to look behind them and see that we have failed in our duty, that we succumbed to the lowest denominator? Or do we want them to be proud of us and the stance we took?…I’m voting to let them land and that we do what we always do: we follow protocol to the letter. That means when they step on country, we welcome them and wish them safe passage.
The Visitors p222-223If only those ‘visitors’ could have been so generous and gracious in their response.
The Visitors is published by Fourth Estate in August 2023.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
Revelatory: ‘Reaching Through Time – Finding my Family’s Stories’ by Shauna Bostock
The photograph on the cover of Shauna Bostock’s story of researching her ancestors is indicative of the book itself: compelling.
I am going to begin my discussion of the book with this: if you are a family historian or at all interested in Australian history, this book is a must-read.
The author, a Bundjalung woman who began researching her family story for a PhD in Aboriginal history, has skillfully woven together various strands of her exploratory processes in archives, libraries, and interviews, with the stories of her forebears. In doing so, she has created a vivid and multi-layered picture of Australian history, especially the experiences of First Nations Australians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
There is so much in this book that made me stop, turn pages back and forth to the meticulous referencing, to the photographs, or to previous pages. As someone passionate about uncovering my own family stories from the past, there were many moments of recognition in Ms Bostock’s research journey: the thrill of discovering a previously unknown fact; the way that serendipity or fate so often plays a part in the process; the coincidences of meeting someone or stumbling upon a document that hold the key to the very nugget of information you are seeking. The indescribable feeling of viewing an archival document from the past that tells you something about your ancestor, or an old photo that brings them to life.
As any family historian will tell you: family history research requires patience AND perseverance.
Especially so in this case, as Ms Bostock found when she experienced road blocks to accessing important archival information, and evidence of the mind-numbing level of bureaucracy that Aboriginal people have endured since colonisation.
The book begins with the shocking revelation that the non-indigenous ancestors in her family tree were descended from English slave traders – a huge irony given that one of them arrived in Australia as a convict, having been arrested on slavery charges in the late 1700’s.
From there, the narrative traverses key parts of the colonisation experience for First Nations: frontier violence and killings; theft of land, livelihood, spiritual and cultural connections; the precarious nature of life on Aboriginal reserves; the deceit and hypocrisy of the various government bodies set up to ‘protect’ and control Aboriginal people and the enduring damages inflicted through practices such as the forced removal of children from their homes and families.
rural and urban Also looming large are the ugliness of apartheid-like segregation and racism within communities; indenture of young children into service of white families or farms (often akin to slavery); increasing control and surveillance of every aspect of Aboriginal lives.
I could go on.
What distinguishes this book is the author’s research and how she has woven together the experiences of the colonisers and the colonised – including of course her own family members:
To use a photographic analogy…I felt like a photographer adjusting the focus of the lens. I have ‘zoomed in’ with a microcosmic focus on the individuals and the reserve/mission space – and then I have ‘zoomed out’ to capture the macrocosmic bureaucracy of the Australian Government’s Aborigines Protection Board.
Reaching through History p174There are stories of defiance and resistance as well, which the author rightly points out are important for all generations of Aboriginal people to know about.
I enjoyed the later chapters where she outlines the many creative and artistic ways in which her family members have expressed defiance and worked for change.
On a personal note, I had a little thrill to realise that several of the author’s close family members were instrumental in producing the excellent documentary film Lousy Little Sixpence, in which elders discussed their experiences as stolen children, in the homes set up supposedly to ‘care’ for Aboriginal children, or working as domestic servants or rural labourers for white people in the first half of the twentieth century. I used this film as a resource many times in my teaching during the 1990’s and early 2000’s, and I now see that it was one of the earliest publicly accessible resources telling the stories of the Stolen Generations.
There is so much to think about in this book. Please buy a copy or borrow it from your local library. It is such a rich resource on our nation’s history. And for family historians, surely we must all resonate to the author’s final words:
The history of Aboriginal people in this country is also a ‘living wound under a patchwork of scars’ but the process of truth-telling creates healing. By reaching through time and pulling our ancestors’ files out of the archives we restore their humanity…
Reaching through Time p319
Ruminating on the slavery theme, I wondered if family history research was the key to emancipation, because researching my ancestors’ lives has spiritually unshackled them.Reaching Through Time is published by Allen & Unwin in July 2023.
‘The Hidden Book’ by Kirsty Manning
The sixth novel by Australian author Kirsty Manning explores the legacy of WWII trauma and loss over several generations.
It was inspired by the true story of an album of photographs smuggled out of Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. The graphic and shocking photographs were taken by an inmate of the camp under instructions from the camp commander, who wanted five albums made to present to his superior officers – itself a rather sickening act, I think.
The photographer risked all to create a sixth copy of each photo, which he kept hidden, until they could be smuggled out and kept in safety by a local villager. After the war, the photos were used by prosecutors during the Nuremberg war crimes trials. The album was brought to Australia in the 1970’s and today is kept at the Sydney Jewish Museum.
From these historical events, the author has woven a tale of courage and heartbreak, the pain that memories can inflict and the importance of truth telling. She has imagined how the album got to be in Australia, creating a cast of fictional characters and relationships that are entirely believable and compelling.
Hannah is a teenager in 1980’s rural Australia with her mum, who emigrated from then-Yugoslavia and married an Australian man. Hannah’s father has died and she has a difficult and complicated relationship with her mother, Roza; but she adores her grandfather Nico, who visits every few years.
On his last visit he leaves a mysterious book, wrapped in an ordinary calico bag. Roza refuses to allow Hannah to see it and hides the book, but Hannah later finds it. What she sees are confronting images, bewildering to her young eyes. Over the years, she learns about the war, the Holocaust and the camps, and longs to see the album again, to make better sense of it and to understand the legacy Nico’s experiences have left for her family. She studies history at university and decides to undertake an honours thesis, on aspects of WWII camps related to her grandfather’s experiences:
You couldn’t rewrite history, but you could explore different ways to study it and bring it into the present political and cultural domain…the whole of Mauthausen, inside and outside the camp, needed to be treated with reverence and remembrance. The question of how to present and tell stories of the past could perhaps be one of the backbones of her thesis.
The Hidden Book, ebook location 123 of 221Alternating with Hannah’s contemporary story are those of Nico during his long years at Mauthausen camp; Santiago, a young Spanish boy who helps the photographer Mateo in the darkroom; and Lena, a young woman in the village who is entrusted with the care of the photos. All of these characters risk punishment and likely death if their activities are discovered.
The novel is a tale of incredible courage and endurance, and of completing a journey that began decades earlier for Nico, Roza and Hannah.
It is a moving story about war and its aftermath. Readers who enjoy historical fiction with a foot firmly in real historic events, will love The Hidden Book.
It is published by Allen & Unwin in August 2023.
My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a review copy.
‘Original sin’: ‘The Seven’ by Chris Hammer
I read Chris Hammer’s first, best-selling novel Scrublands soon after its publication in 2018 and was taken by its visceral descriptions of an outback Australian community and landscape. Crime fiction must always be about more than the ‘whodunit?’: I like stories that transport me to a place and time, with characters that I come to care about, and Hammer’s stories fit the bill.
‘The Seven’ takes place in the western part of NSW, the region known as the Riverina. This was country made fertile by an ambitious and extensive irrigation scheme, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, and Hammer has set his story in a similar, though smaller, fictional region, with the town of Yuwonderie at its centre.
It was here that one hundred years earlier, seven founding families established the scheme, creating a network of companies and trading arrangements that fueled their wealth, prestige and power in the district.
The story is told across various time-frames and points of view. There are letters from Bessie, an indigenous woman employed by one of the Seven households, just before, and during, WWI. In the 1990’s we follow Davis, a young man from one of the Seven families, on the edge of making a decision about his future. And in the present time there is Detective Sergeant Ivan Lucic, brought to the town with his detective colleague, Nell, to investigate the murder of Athol Hasluck, from another of the Seven.
Ivan and Nell feature in two earlier books, but there is no need to have read those to enjoy this one. They are terrific characters: with strengths that complement each others, and their own weaknesses too, which seem to be a must-have in crime fiction!
As I read this novel, I thought about the many country towns I have visited or driven through, and found myself wondering about their foundation stories and people. Certainly this is a solid thread running through The Seven: how the establishment of a town or farming community frames its future.
The author makes the case here:
He flipped to the first chapter, ‘Foundation.’ The text was heroic…no mention of any Indigenous people, no mention of how the Europeans had come to the district, no mention of any pre-existing ecosystem. But that in itself might prove useful: the document reflecting bygone attitudes, still alive, maybe even more so, by the 1970’s.
The Seven ebook page 76 of 375In the case of Yuwonderie, its origins are mired in misdeeds that carry down to the present, where criminal activity, corruption and deceit lie at the heart of the current murder, and also an unsolved double-murder from decades before. We are indeed looking at ‘original sins.’
The part of the book that didn’t work so well for me was the series of letters written in the early twentieth century by Bessie to her mother. The events and relationships related in these letters prove crucial to later events and I usually enjoy novels set over different time periods. It was something about the voice used in the letters that somehow jarred a little, drew me out of the story for a bit.
Overall, however, I enjoyed this novel and the light it shines on essential resources and the role they play in communities: in this case, water, without which none of the Seven founding families would have been able to create or maintain their wealth and influence.
See that line of trees, that grey-green line? That’s the river. The Murrumbidgee. That’s where the water comes from. And the money. Everything, really.
The Seven loc 119 of 375Readers who like gritty crime fiction set in recognisable Australian landscapes will enjoy this one.
The Seven is published by Allen & Unwin in October 2023.
My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a review copy.Loss and hope: ‘The Ship’s Midwife’ by Peta Miller
The premise and setting of this story, debut novel by Australian Peta Miller, has special significance for me.
Those who have read my series of posts Travels with my Ancestors will know that I have several ancestors who emigrated as assisted and unassisted migrants, aboard sailing ships in the 1800’s. The bald facts of their journeys (name of ships, dates of arrival, etc) do little to convey the often-traumatic experiences they had and the risks they took in search of a new life in colonies of Australia.
The Ship’s midwife tells the story of Sarah Harlow, who in 1850 sails to Brisbane aboard an immigrant ship. She is alone in the world and hopes to be able to use her midwifery skills in the colony to support herself.
She becomes firm friends with her cabin mate, Bridie, a fiery and outspoken Irish girl, with midwifery experience of her own. Together they plan a life working together in the colony.
On the voyage, typhus breaks out amongst the steerage passengers. A common shipboard illness caused by unhygienic and cramped conditions – and the abundance of lice, among other pests), typhus is highly infectious, and it cuts a vicious swathe through passengers and crew alike.
Sarah and Bridie do their best to help nurse the sick, but little can be done to prevent its spread.
The ship is a microcosm of Victorian-era society: the bulk of passengers from impoverished backgrounds, cramped together in ‘steerage class’ below decks; the ship’s surgeon and his son, ship’s master and senior crew in more comfortable cabins, and the bulk of the crew sleeping in hammocks. There are grievances and arguments as the long tiring voyage wears away at patience, but also kindness and generosity.
Terrible events play out on the ship and to make matters worse, when they finally arrive in Brisbane, they are sent to quarantine at Stradbroke Island, which had been recently designated a quarantine station and was not ready or equipped to receive them. Sarah and the others must find the energy and grit to set up what is necessary to provide for all the passengers, until they can be received on the mainland.
I remember several visits I made years ago, to the historic quarantine station on Sydney’s North Head. It’s wild beauty and amazing views of the harbour must surely have provided some comfort for those sent there at the end of their long voyages across the world. But the remains of the hospital building, and the names carved into the cliff near the landing dock, spoke volumes about the experiences of the people who found themselves there. Having endured months at sea with all its risks and discomforts, and so far from home, arriving at a lonely, isolated spot like this must surely have been the last straw for many.
So it is with the characters in this book. People are people and there are those who will help others, who will do what must be done; and there are always those who complain and leave the hard work to others or fall prey to despair.
My only criticism – and it is a small one – is the title. The working title of the unpublished manuscript was apparently Sing Us Home, which (in my humble opinion) is a resonant and beautiful title. There is a current trend in historical fiction publishing that novel titles take a certain form: The Resistance Girl, or The Librarian Spy, for example. I applaud the focus on the agency of the female protagonists, but…I do wish there was a little more variety – and that terrific titles are allowed to stand more often. Still, publishers know the industry and what sells, so who am I to argue?
I very much enjoyed the research that has gone into the story of The Ship’s Midwife and I hope to see more historical fiction from this author in the future.
The Ship’s Midwife is published by HQ Fiction in June 2023.
My thanks to the publishers for the copy to review.Beauty and love: ‘The Lucky Shack’ by Aspara Baldovino
What a beautiful debut book this is.
With lush, gorgeous illustrations by Perth-based Jennifer Faulkner, The Lucky Shack tells the story of a simple cottage by the sea, built and cared for by a fisherman.
One day a frightening storm strikes and the fisherman does not return. The shack feels alone and neglected…until a fisherwoman finds it and once more, the place is loved and lived in.The story celebrates the colours, depths and beauty of nature, along with human connection and love.
There is a wonderful assortment of vocabulary for younger readers to absorb, enriching the narrative and introducing beautiful new words to try:
Boats pass me by.
I creak my tired floorboards with loud groans,
but they don’t stop.
I flicker the porch light,
like the lighthouse on the cliff
sending codes in the night.
I let go of a precious window shutter
to send a message into the deep blue,
to anyone who will listen.This is a gorgeous addition to any child’s bookshelf.
The Lucky Shack is published by Working Title Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, in July 2023.
My thanks to the publishers for a copy.Perfect: ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho’ by Pip Williams
Do you know the feeling when you treat yourself to a new book purchase and, because you have several other books to read first, it sits on your bookshelf or bedside table for a while? Every time you pass it, you have a warm feeling inside. I will get to you soon, you promise. There is often great pleasure to be had in the anticipation of pleasure.
That was me with The Bookbinder of Jericho. I had (like so many others around the world) fallen in love with Pip William’s 2020 novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, and so I was very pleased when I learned she was writing a second novel set in Oxford in the World War I era. Having at last been able to read it, I can say with certainty that it will be one of my standout reads for 2023.
Pip Williams writes the best kind of historical fiction: stories about real places and events, with characters to care deeply about. Fiction that tells us something about who we are today and how we got here. The past is the recipe for the present, whether we know it or not. These types of novels illuminate how and why.
The Bookbinder of Jericho stands on its own as a perfect story; there is no need to have read the earlier book. It is not a prequel or a sequel, but a companion novel. Having said that, I did have little thrills of recognition as characters or references from the first book made brief but profound appearances in this new story.
The narrative centers around the people in the ‘bindery’ of Oxford University Press: almost all women, they were the workers who gathered, folded and stitched the printed pages into books. This work is imbued with a grace and dignity; though never glamorised. In the early twentieth century, there was a steep price to be paid for being working class and a woman. Even as Britain moved towards women’s suffrage, this initially only applied for women who owned property or wealth.
Peggy is one of the ‘bindery girls’ but she longs to be able to have the words in her mind as well as the papers in her hands. She is told more times than she can remember, Your job is to bind the books, not read them. Her twin sister, Maud, is special: a ‘one of a kind’, loved by her family and neighbours, though Peggy has moments of wondering what life would be like without the responsibility of caring for her sister.
The sisters live on a narrowboat moored on the river, which sounds romantic but is also cold in winter, hot in summer, and very cramped.
Their tiny home is filled with bookshelves installed when their mother was alive, containing bound and loose leaf printings of books or parts of books, collected by Peggy and her mother when rejected as ‘waste’ at the printer or bindery. The girls’ mother introduced them to classics and works of antiquity, such as Homer’s Odysseus. Peggy dreams of entering the women’s college of Oxford university, just across the road from the bindery where she goes to work every day.
‘I’m from Jericho, Bastiaan, not Oxford. I left school at twelve, and Homer was not in the curriculum at St Barnabas – not in English and certainly not in Ancient Greek.’
The Bookbinder of Jericho p258
‘But why not in English?’
‘There was no point. Our destinies were too ordinary to bother the gods, and our journeys would take us no further than the Press.’
‘The same Press that prints Homer in English and Ancient Greek?’
I raised my eyebrows and did my best impression of Mrs Hogg.
‘Your job, Miss Jones, is to bind the books, not read them.Then WWI breaks out and life changes for everyone.
This is the story of women’s work and their challenges; the prison that social class and gender expectations create for everyone; the way war both damages and destroys, yet can open new opportunities for some.
Especially it is the story of people and relationships: how they can hurt and heal; how friendship and love can embrace and nurture even in the darkest of circumstances; how some injuries cannot be healed.
For me, it is a perfect piece of historical fiction. I loved this book.
The Bookbinder of Jericho was published by Affirm Press in 2023.
Here is a little video showing the author folding, stitching, and binding her own printed book – just as the bindery girls did in the novel.
