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Currently Reading...
The Secret River
by Kate Grenville
Synopsis: After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts there is a whisper that freedom can be bought, an opportunity to start afresh.
Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill encounters men who have tried to do just that: Blackwood, who is attempting to reconcile himself with the place and its people, and Smasher Williams, whose fear of this alien world turns into brutal depravity towards it. As Thornhill and his family stake their claim on a patch of ground by the river, the battle lines between old and new inhabitants are drawn.
The Secret River enters the experience of being a settler on the Australian frontier. The heroism of the pioneers is well-known. This is the shadow-side of the familiar heroic myth. It doesn’t judge, doesn’t condemn, doesn’t take sides. It simply tells the story in all its moral and emotional complexity.
First Line: The Alexander, with its cargo of convicts, had bucked over the face of the ocean for the better part of a year.
[ skrevet av ladislav pekar ]
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