PRAISE FOR KATE GRENVILLE AND THE SECRET RIVER
WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS’ PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
‘Beautifully written and compelling from start to finish, this is a marvellous novel’ The Times
‘In The Secret River, Kate Grenville has written a book that will satisfy her critics’ craving for more action. Grenville, as ever, describes an Australia so overwhelmingly beautiful that readers will lust after its sunbaked soul’ Daily Telegraph
‘Reading The Secret River may put you off reading anything less accomplished for a while’ Daily Express
‘Ambitious . . . Grenville writes prose which is immediately engaging. There are overtones of Macbeth in this study in how a man, not inherently evil, can be corrupted by circumstances. Grenville’s skill is to turn what could have been too obviously a representative moral fable into a rich novel of character’ Sunday Telegraph
‘A vivid and moving portrayal of poverty, struggle and the search for peace’ Independent
‘This wonderful story about ownership and identity is filled with imagery that transports you immediately to its heart’ Marie Claire
‘A moving account of the brutal collision of two cultures; but it is the vivid evocation of the harshly beautiful landscape that is the novel’s outstanding achievement’ Mail on Sunday
‘Gripping and moving’ Red
‘A richly layered tale of a fierce and unforgiving backdrop, the quest for its ownership, and the brutal price paid by those who would colonise it is vividly described. A dramatic, beautiful work’ Scotland on Sunday
‘An outstanding study of cultures in collision . . . a chilling, meticulous account of the sorrows and evils of colonialism . . . Kate Grenville is a sophisticated writer’ Guardian
‘Here is someone who can really write’ Peter Carey
‘This is a novel everyone should read’ Irish Times
‘Harrowing and tremendously entertaining . . . so moving, so exciting, that you’re barely aware of how heavy and profound its meaning is until you reach the end in a moment of stunned sadness’ Washington Post
‘Magnificent. An unflinching exploration of modern Australia’s origins’ New Yorker
‘Grenville is one of the very best . . . a writer with a rich palette and with a natural affinity for the sensuous and the sensual’ Age
PRAISE FOR KATE GRENVILLE AND THE LIEUTENANT
‘Elegantly calibrated prose . . . a lovely, watchful stillness: a sort of astronomy of the human heart’ Sunday Telegraph
‘This engrossing story evokes the excitement of discovery and the beauty of an unspoilt land’ Irish Mail on Sunday
‘In lucid prose and perfectly measured strides, Grenville lays down her riveting tale. A novel aglow with empathy, its author’s capacious visions still deliver an elemental thrill’ Daily Mail
‘This novel is a triumph. Read it at once’ The Times
‘An original, inviting tale’ Lionel Shriver, Daily Telegraph
‘A particular kind of stillness marks Kate Grenville’s characters out as uniquely hers . . . Between the words and among them, this is a profoundly uplifting novel’ Independent
‘Compelling . . . intelligent, spare, always engrossing’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Grenville inhabits characters with a rare completeness . . . She occupies the mind of Rooke with a kind of vivid insistence, and his isolation – and moral dilemmas – become ours’ Guardian
ALSO BY KATE GRENVILLE
NOVELS
Lilian’s Story
Dark Places
Dreamhouse
Joan Makes History
The Idea of Perfection
The Secret River
The Lieutenant
SHORT STORIES
Bearded Ladies
NON-FICTION
The Writing Book
Making Stories (with Sue Woolfe)
Writing from Start to Finish
Searching for the Secret River
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published by Canongate in 2011
Copyright © Kate Grenville, 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published in Australia in 2011 by the Text Publishing Company,
Swann House, 22 William Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
eISBN 978 0 85786 257 0
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This novel is dedicated to the memory of Sophia Wiseman and Maryanne Wiseman, and their mother, ‘Rugig’.
It does not follow that because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively no shape at all or an infinity of shapes.
E. H. CARR
CONTENTS
PART ONE
THE HAWKESBURY was a lovely river, wide and calm, the water dimply green, the cliffs golden in the sun, and white birds roosting in the trees like so much washing. It was a sweet thing of a still morning, the river-oaks whispering and the land standing upside down in the water.
They called us the Colony of New South Wales. I never liked that. We wasn’t new anything. We was ourselves.
The Hawkesbury was where the ones come that was sent out. Soon’s they got their freedom, this was where they headed. Fifty miles out of Sydney and not a magistrate or a police to be seen. A man could pick