Our book this month is the historical fiction novel The Secret River by Australian author Kate Grenville. In this book she explores the story of her great-great-great-grand- father, convict Solomon Wiseman, as portrayed by her fictional character William Thornhill. The book has won numerous awards and nominations, including the Commonwealth Writers Award, and was short listed for both the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. (Miles Franklin was a beloved Australian author that every Australian high school student would be familiar with, and the award would be equivalent to the Pulitzer.)
As Grenville’s story goes, in 1806 William Thorn- hill, an illiterate Londoner is deported for stealing a load of wood. Along with his wife Sal, he arrives at the New South Wales colony that would become Australia.
When Thornhill “first sees the patch of ground he will claim on the river, he marvels: ‘No one had ever spoken to him of how a man might fall in love with a piece of ground.’ And, of course, in that line is everything. Because the land he decides to claim—to take, to steal—is the country of the Darug people and they have an intimate, intense knowledge of every inch of it, a knowledge acquired over millennia.” (The Guardian, July 19, 2020)
The author’s website tells us, “The Secret River caused controversy when it first appeared (2005), and (has) become a pawn in the ‘history wars’ that continues to this day. How should
a nation tell its foundation story, when that story involves the dispossession of other people?” Lots to discuss in this book.
If you would like to join in the discussion, Page Turners consists of three groups—one meets the fourth Monday afternoon of the month and the other two meet the fourth Thursday afternoon of the month. For information on the Thursday groups please contact Steve and Ann Morris at samwrsi@cox.net and for the Monday group contact me at
fozimec@cox.net.
—Frances Ozimec
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