The secret river

by Kate Grenville

Paper Book, 2005

Status

Available

Call number

813

Series

Colonial Trilogy (1)

Genres

Publication

New York : Canongate, [2007], c2005.

Description

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, are white men who have tried to do just that. But, as uninhabited as the island appears at first, Australia is full of native people, and they too claim the land as their own.

User reviews

LibraryThing member msf59

“It was a sad scrabbling place, this town of Sydney. The old hands called it The Camp, and in 1806 that was pretty much still what it was: a half-formed temporary sort of place.”

London was a brutal place in the early 19th century and William Thornhill, trying to support a young family, in the

boating/shipping trade, had to resort to theft, just to survive. He was caught and sentenced to die. A deal was struck and his sentence was reduced and he was transported to New South Wales, (Australia) with scores of other convicts, to live out the rest of their lives. The most interesting part of the “deal” was, he is able to bring his family along.
The rest of this intoxicating story, is how the Thornhills survive in this “alien” environment, trying to delicately coexist, along with an Aboriginal tribe.
This book is a fictionalized account of the author’s ancestor’s, as they struggled, to make a new life, in a new land.
Yes, Grenville is a female author but the first word that comes to mind, to describe her writing style is robust. Her prose is sinewy and scrappy and the narrative moves along at a nice clip. This is my first book by this author and I cannot recommend it high enough.

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LibraryThing member Cariola

An unforgettable and disturbing novel. Many reviewers here and elsewhere rightly note that The Secret River is about the white settlement of Australia--but it is so much more. There's a terrible irony in the fact that men like William Thornhill, a struggling London Waterman convicted of theft but

transported instead of hanged, saw the "new" continent as a place where they could escape the dehumanization of class and poverty, yet they became the very monsters from which they had gladly fled. Initially, Thornhill is an empathetic character, a man just trying to do a little better for his wife and children. It's his craving for property, a tract of land to work and to call his own, that leads to his personal success--and to his personal tragedy. By putting his insatiable desire for the land ahead of his marriage, his children, his common sense, and even his conscience, Thornhill becomes the empty shell of a man, and we are left to ask whether the individual or the rigid class/wealth structure that is to blame. Is it personal greed or the effects of an environment in which possessing property is viewed as the only mark of a successful man? Just when Thornhill seems finally to have it all, we're left to ask if he really has anything at all.

Grenville does a splendid job of recreating the atmosphere of, first, Victorian London, and, later, the colonial towns and bush settlements of Australia. Her characters (at least the main ones) are complex and believable; and even the lesser characters are well drawn. There are scenes in the book that will haunt and disturb you and others that will just leave you shaking your head. Overall, an engaging novel, well worth reading.

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LibraryThing member Smiler69

William Thornhill has known nothing but a hardscrabble life in the rough parts of London in the early 1800s when he is sentenced to death for stealing precious wood. His wife, childhood love Sal, manages to have his sentence changed and they are instead extradited to a convict colony in Australia

with their small son in tow. William is a harworker and Sal a very resourceful woman, and within a short few years following a difficult boat passage, William manages to obtain a pardon and put aside some savings in this land where everybody has a past they'd rather put behind them and plenty of opportunities ahead. While boating up and down a river with his employer, another ex-convinct called Blackwood, and as they take merchandise to and from Sydney and the settlers of the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill falls in love with a piece of land and starts dreaming of making it his domain. All a man need do to claim land in this place is to clear a patch of earth, plant a crop, and wait for it to grow. Though Sal dreams of nothing but of returning "home" to London, William convinces her to move their growing brood to this dream place of his where he feels certain their fortunes lay. Though Thornhill is aware that there are natives, "blacks" living hidden among the bushes and the trees, and though he's seen how some of the other colonizers deal with them—with extreme brutality in the case of one of his neighbours, Smasher Sullivan, he doesn't for a moment question that the land is his to take and that the blacks will move on to some other place. But as time goes by and he and Sal must contend with the blacks' growing presence on what he considers to be "his" hundred acres, and what starts as mere disagreements and misunderstandings between him and the natives, with plenty of amusing moments or culture clash, soon mounts to growing tension and violence.

The novel is beautifully written and the pacing excellent, but the as the impeding sense of doom grew, I reached a point near the end when I felt unable to continue. After all, we all know what the fate of the natives of Australia was, as they, like the American natives were mostly decimated, with the few survivors made to live on reserves. But Grenville's characters are multi-dimensional, and Thornhill is a complex man and worthy of our empathy, perhaps because Grenville has based the novel on the experience of one of her forefathers. Whatever the case may be, by the end of the novel, the reader feels like he is still able to draw his own conclusions, though it's quite clear the author is trying to make peace with a difficult past. Not a light read by any means, but well worth the effort.

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LibraryThing member lit_chick

“That man, in his red coat and his gold braid, was as irrelevant to what was happening on the Hawkesbury as was the King, or even God Himself.” (261)

In early nineteenth century London, William Thornhill, once a young waterman with promise, and his wife, Sal, fall on hard times. When Thornhill

is caught stealing to feed his family, he is spared the gallows on condition of exile to New South Wales, Australia. He, along with his family, is transported to Sydney; but their new home is a harsh and foreign land which they struggle to understand. Eight years in, Thornhill is pardoned, and he sails up the Hawkesbury River to make claim to one hundred acres of land in hope of building a new life for himself and his young family.

But the land along the river is inhabited by aboriginals who see it as their own. Thornhill, quick to temper and feeling entitled to some good fortune given years of hard luck and hard labour, refuses to let go the dream of his own place, Thornhill’s Place. His doggedness will force him to make decisions from which there will be no turning back. And an impenetrable silence settles between him and Sal, who is imprisoned by the very dream that frees her husband.

“Whatever the shadow was that lived with them, it did not belong just to him, but to her as well: it was a space they both inhabited. But it seemed there was no way to speak into that silent place. Their lives had slowly grown around it, the way the roots of a river-fig grew around a rock.” (325)

The Secret River is a fabulous read. I confess I did not know that Australia was settled, at least in part, by England’s exiled convicts. Grenville use of Thornhill’s story to depict early nineteenth century colonialism is brilliant. Her writing is brawny, and her attitude unembellished, and I think both strike an effective note, given that we know what was the fate of Australia’s aborigines:

“He could hear the great machinery of London, the wheel of justice chewing up felons and spitting them out here, boatload after boatload, spreading out from the Government Wharf in Sydney, acre by acre, slowed but not stopped by rivers, mountains, swamps. / The thought made him gentle. There won’t be no stopping us, he said. Pretty soon there won’t be nowhere left for you black buggers.” (215)

This is my first novel by Grenville, but I will be back for more. Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member vancouverdeb

William Thornhill is born into poverty and the slums of London in the 1880's. In many ways, a good person at heart, William is also a complex character. "He grew up a fighter. By the time he was ten years old the other boys knew to leave him alone. The rage warmed him and filled him up. It was a

kind of friend." p. 15

Shortly after marrying his beloved wife, Sal, he is sentenced to death for stealing wood. However , his sentence is commuted to transportation to Australia " for the term of his natural life"

His wife and growing family accompany him to the "sad scrabbling" p75 town of Sydney in 1806. There he labours for " His Majesty's Government " as England colonizes Australia.

As time goes by, William a loving husband and father, wishes for more dignity and patch of land to call his own. Very much against his wife's wishes, William moves his family to a very isolated piece of bush on the side of Hawkesbury River, a spot with which he has become smitten.While the young family tries to eke out a plot of land, slowly they realize that in fact this land is already occupied by aboriginal people. Internally frightened and not really understanding the aboriginal people and their culture , William acts aggressively and angrily with these people.

This is a powerful story, and the climax, in which many white men confront the aboriginal people, evoked anger, sorrow and even rage within me. I felt ashamed to to a part of the white race that has so often attempted to colonize other countries by our own villainous treatment of indigenous people. The Secret River shines a powerful and unflinching light on the clash between the forces of greed and entitlement felt by many colonizers versus the aboriginal people.

Very graphic, grim, unsettling and powerful , The Secret River will stay with me for a long, long time.

4. 5 stars

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LibraryThing member brokenangelkisses

Ok, I’ll confess straight away: I loved this novel. If I could give it ten out of five stars, I would. The title made me wary (especially after having recently read ‘The Savage Garden’, similarly titled but exceedingly dull) and the mountains of critical praise that dominated the back and

inside covers made me dubious – could any book really be this good? Fortunately, the answer was hell yes.

Background
Kate Grenville is an Australian writer whose last novel was published five years before this one and won her the Orange Prize. I can only say that the time spent on this one was worthwhile, as I’ve not read her previous work. This story is loosely linked to the historical life of one of Grenville’s ancestors, but she stresses her research and the fictional nature of the overall construct in her acknowledgements.

Basic story
William Thornhill is a mostly honest man struggling to earn enough to support his wife and child in Victorian London. He has always been involved in some petty crime to keep his head above water and Sal off the streets, but when he is caught and sentenced to be hung his world crashes around him. As Thornhill mopes, his determined wife sets in chain a series of events which result in the whole family being transported to Australia to live in a penal colony. Gradually, Thornhill becomes a free man and starts to make his impression on the harsh but beautiful Australian landscape. What no one had considered, were the natives. Initially Thornhill and other ex-convicts live uncomfortably beside the ‘savages’, but as events become increasingly violent, this hard working man must find a way to secure his new life for good.

Opening/style
There is a prologue of sorts which cuts to the heart of the story while creating a vivid sense of the danger to be found in Australia. This made me feel immediately involved in the story and demonstrated Thornhill’s distinct discomfort with the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia. I immediately began to wonder: could he ever overcome his whole context sufficiently to recognise the basic humanity of the native peoples?

After the prologue we dive into a familiar, stinking, class divided Victorian London. I loved reading this very Dickensian section of the novel. Some reviewers have suggested that this kind of writing has been overdone and become rather dull. I appreciate that I am a great lover of Dickens’ style, but I disagree with the notion that just because something has been well done before that it becomes boring to do it again. I found these chapters very high paced and compelling to read, especially as Thornhill begins to make his way in the world, only to have convincing incidents start to ruin him all over again.

I could easily imagine and follow Thornhill’s difficult childhood and appreciate how this shaped the man he later became. Without seeing these formative years, I suspect I would have found Thornhill a far less sympathetic character later on, and this could have spoiled the perfect balance Grenville creates in our response to him. Despite acting at times in a way that should appal modern readers, Thornhill never quite loses our broad sympathy because we are so aware of his individual, social and historical context. Grenville achieves all of this without ever having to say “look, this is what it would really have been like, ok?” The characters and places are so convincingly evoked that you are able to imagine their lives outside the confines of the story, to some extent. This is partly because she describes everything in just the right amount of detail, including telling incidents easily in the broad sweep of the narrative.

Characters/atmosphere
Finally, the Thornhills travel to Australia and the mood actually darkens. Perhaps it is the realisation that class is equally important here, in the places that matter. Perhaps it is the way that our breadwinner continues to indulge in petty crime, despite being otherwise hard-working. Perhaps it is simply a sense of foreboding based on our knowledge of history. Whatever it is, there is a quiet sense of menace from the opening scenes in New South Wales that deepens inexorably as the novel continues. This means that, despite switching locations, the novel remains quietly compelling as we read to see how the Thornhills can adapt, and how the natives will react to their presence.

Grenville has separated the story into sections which reflect both geographical movements and progression in the relationships between the settlers and the natives of the country. These help to create a sense of development and allow tracts of time to pass by. (This is a novel which spans many years.) I found this useful because it allowed breaks which the lack of chapters often prevented me from taking!

Perhaps the biggest strength of this novel – after the excellent description – is Grenville’s skilful rendering of character and ability to leave the moral judgements ambiguous. The way the settlers treat the natives is appalling and sometimes disturbing. There are two incidents in particular, committed by one of the grosser settlers, who is revealingly called ‘Smasher’, which still fill my mind now and cause me to shudder. These incidents are confined to the places in the narrative where they occur, no one really discusses them later, yet they continue to haunt me due to the shocking understatement with which they are described. The very lack of further consideration always renders this shocking: Thornhill will not tell Sal, who is increasingly uncomfortable in this isolated land, and there is no one else to tell. Those of the settlers who know will never tell so these incidents become parts of the great unspoken knowledge of the novel and of history. In a sense then, Thornhill’s silence could make him seem to be an accomplice in hideous acts, yet I never felt this way. The sense of context was too strong. Who could Thornhill have told? What could he have done? Most chillingly, who (apart from Sal) would care?

There are too many characters to discuss them all, but a few are worthy of special mention. Thornhill’s second son begins to take a very different route from his father which causes friction but created, for me, one of the few places in the novel where I felt some brief hope for the future. It is interesting to follow his reactions, especially towards the close of the novel. Sal is also very interesting, in her own right and as a foil for Thornhill. She is determined but kind, yet even she suffers from the same pride which allows Thornhill to insist to an old friend, with whom he once pissed on his own feet to keep them warm, that ‘Mr Thornhill would be more appropriate, Ned.’ The social stratification, so visible and predictable in London, is given a newly disturbing edge by its presence in the colony and effect on the otherwise admirable Sal. This is a subtle but powerful lesson on how such stratification breeds envy, greed and violence.

Final thoughts
I found this a compelling read throughout, although I particularly enjoyed the Dickensian opening chapters. There is some gruesome violence interspersed throughout the later section of the book, which is haunting due to the understatement Grenville employs and never seems excessive. I enjoyed reading about the characters and seeing how they tried to adapt to their new lifestyles. The way Sal and Thornhill manage their rise through society is especially revealing.

There is a lot of sadness in the book. Obviously the way the natives are treated is disturbing, and the Thornhills lose their right to live in London, but there are more subtle sadnesses too. Husband and wife grow increasingly distant as Thornhill’s choices centre on his needs rather than Sal’s and the children’s. Grenville conveys this distance in such a way that we understand more than Thornhill what he has lost and how he has lost it.

The historical setting is convincingly drawn and I feel that I have really learned about the culture of these people in an engaging and memorable way. This should really be required reading for those who see any other culture or group of people as being so different or distant as to label the other ‘less than me’.

In my opinion, there are two real tests of a novel’s quality and this passes both with flying colours. I kept thinking about the characters, situation and values in the novel long after I closed the final page, and I definitely plan to reread this one day. I think it is suitable for anyone who is interested in Australian history or clashes between cultures – or even just anyone who is interested in reading a powerful tale about ordinary people in extraordinary times.

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LibraryThing member lauralkeet

Set in Australia in the early 1800s, The Secret River is the story of William Thornhill, a London riverboat driver sent to Australia after being convicted of a crime. He is accompanied by his wife Sal, who acts as his "master" as required by law. During his twelve month sentence he finds work on a

riverboat and, after serving time, buys his own boat and becomes an independent businessman running goods on the river Hawkesbury. Like many "emancipists" of that time, he also stakes his claim to a large parcel of land. The only problem is, the native people claimed it years before. The white settlers demonstrate remarkable hubris, assuming they have a right to the land and shoo-ing the startled natives away.

William embraces life as a free man, but Sal longs for home. When he buys a 100-acre parcel, he extracts a promise from Sal to stay for five years. She believes they will then return to London, but William never takes his part of the bargain seriously. Sal notes each passing day by marking a tree with a knife. "The unspoken between them was that she was a prisoner here, marking off the days in her little round of beaten earth, and it was unspoken because she did not want him to feel a jailer. She was, in a manner of speaking, protecting him from herself." (p. 150) The book's title comes from this and other unspoken secrets between the couple. As time passes, more and more goes unspoken: the size of the native camp on their land, the details of atrocities between whites and native people, the prejudiced and often violent behaviors exhibited by their neighbors. But Sal is no fool, and is well aware of the escalating tensions and the danger to her family.

Grenville keeps a low- to medium-grade tension running throughout the novel. Some of the tension comes from the very act of survival in the Australian wilderness, and the stress between William and Sal. But the primary conflict is direclty with the native people. While William demonstrates a growing awareness of the natives as human beings, as it says on the book jacket, "to keep his family safe, he must permit terrifying cruelty to come to innocent people." The book's denouement portrays the Thornhills' lives years after this "terrifying cruelty." It is somewhat disappointing, as it's unclear how he and Sal resolved their differences. But the outcome is probably quite true to that period in history. This is a memorable book, well deserving of its Commonwealth Prize and Booker Shortlist recognition.

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LibraryThing member Figgles

Deservedly award winning story of early colonial times on the Hawkesbury River. Tells the life of a London waterman, transported to Australia for theft, his ambitions for a better life in Australia and of the fatal consequences for the aboriginal inhabitants. Beautifully and sympathetically

written, evokes both the grime of eighteeth century London and the fresh beauty of New South Wales as seen for the first time... I have recently taken a ferry ride on the Hawkesbury river and read this book as a consequence. Deals with the same themes but much much better than the dreadful "English Passengers"!

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LibraryThing member miss_read

This just became one of my favourite books. The writing is so evocative and the characters so finely developed. William Thornill, an impoverished Londoner in the 1790s, is caught stealing -- something he is forced to do to feed and house his family. His sentence is that he and his family are sent

to New South Wales. William works his way to a sort of freedom and believes that he must claim his own piece of land in his new country. Sal, his wife, only dreams of returning to London when they have enough money. The land on the river claimed by the Thornhills is inhabited by other former convicts (many rough and violent) from Britain as well as aborigines. The inevitable struggle between the two groups is bloody and brutal. Grenville does an excellent job of making the reader (this one, at any rate) understand the feelings on both sides - even though the PC side of me felt that I ought to understand only the aborigines. I've heard others complain that the ending of the book is too neat and happy, but I didn't see it that way at all. William and Sal do settle into their new life, but they've become exactly what they ridiculed in London - the 'upper class.' This little slice of irony at the end is essential to bring the story full circle.

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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

Author Kate Grenville paints a powerful picture of the conditions that were awaiting the early convicts that were transported to Australia and the conflict between them and the Aborigines in The Secret River. Sent to this new and strange land not by personal choice but from conviction by an English

court and, after working off their sentence, it was very difficult to return to England. Instead they were encouraged to claim a piece of land from this seemingly empty continent. Of course the fact that it was populated by a native population was discounted and these people were dismissed as “naked savages”. That this was the way of things time and time again as white people “discovered” new continents does not make this story any less harsh.

William Thornhill was born into the lowest class of English society, raised in poverty, and even though trained as a waterman on the Thames River, still had to rely on petty thievery as a way of making ends meet. He was eventually caught and sentenced to be transported to Australia. Along with his pregnant wife and young son, he embarked on a life changing adventure. It wasn’t long before Thornhill knew that he had no desire to return to England, that he and his children had a far better chance at improving themselves by staying in Australia. His wife, Sal, felt different and was counting the days until they could return. Taking up property and building themselves into people of consideration was his goal, but standing in the way were the Aborigines who felt that these interlopers had no right to fence the land or claim the crops as their own. When violence escalated, Thornhill had to make a difficult decision. Pack up and leave or stay and sweep the Aborigines from his land.

This was a wonderful piece of historical fiction both well written and researched. The characters, especially William Thornhill are complex, multi faceted people that express real human emotions. There is a general sense of foreboding as we can see both a future confrontation between Will and his wife, as well as the build up of tensions with the natives. The author tells a very emotional story without the reader feeling manipulated. This is an in-depth look at how this land was settled by violence through mutual incomprehension and lack of understanding.

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LibraryThing member mrstreme

The Secret River by Kate Grenville, for me, was a meandering story, winding its way slowly but steadily into a tale of sad success. Will Thornhill, convicted for stealing in England, was sent to Australia with his wife and children to serve out his sentence. Will was a river man and saw the

openness of Australia as a way to make a good living –a place where he can be free in every sense of the word.

After serving his sentence, Will claimed 100 acres and settled his family along a riverbank occupied by fellow Brits and (understandably) inhospitable natives. His wife, Sal, a strong-willed, sensible woman agreed to this settlement with a promise that they would return to London in five years. But in Will’s heart, he knew that his 100 acres was the only way to carve a living that would provide for his family without the English societal restraints.

Grenville’s account of the struggles between the colonists and aboriginal people was eye-opening and compelling. In a modern context, we know what happened of this struggle, but it was mesmerizing and suspenseful to see this story play out in an early 19th century setting.

Grenville has an easy writing style and her ability to draw her characters is superb. My only complaint about The Secret River was that it started too slowly for me. I say this with a grain of salt – there was a lot going on in my life when I started this book, which may have ruined my focus. For me, the second half of the book, when Will and his family settled on to their land, was exhilarating and gripping. The ending left me with a sense of sadness that reminded me that colonialism and the greed of a country can leave people heart-broken, even if they seem successful on paper.

This is my first Kate Grenville book but certainly not my last. I would recommend The Secret River to readers who enjoy quality literary and historical fiction.

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LibraryThing member edgeworth

William Thornhill is born into poverty in 18th century London, only achieving modest prosperity after being apprenticed to his childhood sweetheart’s father and becoming a bargeman working on the River Thames. But after the death of his parents-in-law, the accumulation of debt and repossession of

his boat drives them back into the spiral of poverty, and Thornhill begins thieving to make ends meet. Caught and convicted of stealing a load of Brazil wood one night, he is sentenced to transportation to New South Wales, accompanied by his wife and infant child.

Australia, though a harsh and alien land to the English convicts, was in some ways also a land of opportunity. Granted his ticket of leave, Thornhill soon realises that this is a place where he can accomplish something impossible for him in England: the possession of land. Establishing a freehold on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, he has his first encounters with the native Aboriginals, and soon comes to realise that he can only accomplish his dream by dispossessing others of their land.

Grenville’s sense of place is evocative. You can feel the cold fog of London, Thornhill working in the Thames up to his waist, the living hell of Newgate Prison. The scruffy, struggling colony of Sydney is equally as immersive – the heat, the insects, the bizarre nature of the trees to a European eye:

She was inclined to take it personally about the trees,wondering aloud that they did not know enough to be green, the way a tree should be, but a washed-out silvery grey so they always looked half dead. Nor were they a proper shape, oak shape or elm shape, but were tortured formless things, holding out sprays of leaves on the ends of bare spindly branches that gave no more protection from the sun than shifting veils of shadow.

The Secret River runs an inevitable course towards violent confrontation between the settlers and Aboriginals, but does so without seeming preachy or heavy-handed. The novel is told entirely from Thornhill’s point of view, but despite being pushed into horrific acts, he remains a sympathetic character. There is no question that the British Empire brutally dispossessed Australian Aboriginals of their land, their culture and their heritage, and that they remain a discriminated underclass two centuries later. But what had never occurred to me before was that in many cases, the people directly killing them and taking their land were an underclass themselves: Britain’s poor, forced into crime by desperation, and sent to a distant land where their only chance of prosperity was to go to the fringes of settled land and naturally come into conflict with the locals. Thornhill’s determination to own land is not motivated by greed, but by fear; he knows what it is to be poor, and wishes to secure a future for his children. It’s a sad story, and Grenville masterfully balances our sympathy for the Aboriginals with our sympathy for a poor, stricken man given the tantalising chance to create a bulwark against starvation and misery.

The Secret River is excellent historical fiction; I could recommend it for the opening London chapters alone. But it becomes truly great after Thornhill’s transportation to Australia – a sad and frightening novel of two cultures colliding.

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LibraryThing member Vidalia

Very powerful. Felt as if I were there and made comprehensible the incomprehensible. Grenville mixes poetic description with historical brutality to recreate another time and world.

LibraryThing member booksbooks11

After a false start with another recently lauded Australian novel by I believe it was Roger MacDonald, the name escapes me but it was a particularly dreary story about sheep, wool and convicts. Anyhow, I somehow expected similar from this one, never having read any Kate Grenville before I wasn't

prepared for such an engaging story with such wonderfully drawn characters. It ranks up there with March and Year Of Wonders by Geraldine Brookes.

I'm totally absorbed in this story of a family transported to NSW and their trials and tribulations establishing a home, farm and shipping business on the Hawkesbury River. I could imagine this being set as a high school text it is such an engaging story and tells so much history about early life in the settlements.

If you like a good yarn and are interested in the early history of settlement in Australia it is a must read.

I hold the distinction of being a direct decendent of one of the First Fleet, that is the first shipment of convicts to Australia. So the history side of it is quite fascinating to me. Though I think the life of my particular ancestor was way more difficult than the Thornhill family.

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LibraryThing member brocade

This book belongs to the best sort of historical fiction--where the author never loses sight of her story as she attempts to create an accurate historical setting and social conditions. The story isn't always comfortable. The characters aren't always likable. But the narrative keeps moving.

For

anyone who lives in a country that had colonies, and for anyone who lives in a country that used to be a colony--where settlers invaded land with no regard for the rights of the native population--I would call this book necessary reading.

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LibraryThing member dchaikin

In the first couple pages of The Secret River, William Thornhill, a convict who just arrived in Sydney to serve his criminal sentence, confronts an Australian aboriginal. “He took a threatening step forward. Could make out chips of sharp stone in the end of the spear. It would not go through a

man neat as a needle. It would rip its way in. Pulling it out would rip all over again.” In a moment the aboriginal disappears into the night. The book turns to William’s childhood in circa 1800 London, and we are left pondering Checkov’s gun.

This is a thought provoking and powerful story of Thornhill's climb from destitute poverty and a death sentence to possible wealth. His family tries to make do on an isolated part of New South Wales, Australia during a culture class. The region is populated by a large number of aboriginals, and a small number of idiosyncratic white settlers. The coexistence is tense. When aboriginals make a permanent but peaceful settlement on William's land, and refuse to leave, William can’t decide what to do.

Grenville can tell a story and bring the atmosphere to life. This story is gripping throughout and hard to put down even in long stretches where not all that much happens. The times when the story really picks up, it is quite powerful.

(Spoiler warning)
I curious about William, as he seems to be an odd character who we never really get to know. We first meet a young, industrious man struggling to survive. But, as the story evolves, we find a William who is ambivalent and infuriatingly passive. As he stumbled back in forth in deciding what do, I found myself constantly caught off-guard by his decisions and frustrated by his apparent contradictions. How did we get there? I suppose that the young William was reacting, he never really made any decisions. We don't begin to see the real William until he suddenly has opportunities and decisions to make in Australia. We could judge him lightly and argue that William did not make the decisions he wanted to, but instead, like his thievery, did what he felt needed to be done to get what he wanted or needed. In other words we could argue William acted reluctantly. I'm not so sure that is a correct conclusion. It seemed that William bides his time waiting for an excuse to make awful decision - perhaps decisions he wanted to make all along anyway.

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LibraryThing member japaul22

This is an excellent historical fiction novel about life in the early colonies of Australia, or New South Wales as it was called at the time. The book follows the life of William Thornhill who grows up in utter poverty in London at the end of the 18th century. He falls in love with and marries Sal,

whose father works on the Thames and apprentices William as a waterman. Things start to turn the corner for William and he sees a way that his life could turn out ok. Unfortunately circumstances change and he ends up in Newgate for stealing, condemned to death. He is granted life, but shipped with his wife and son to Australia. This first part of the book was familiar and nothing new to me - I've read many historical fiction novels about the poor and down-trodden in London - but the life the family leads in New South Wales was a different story.

Thornhill fairly quickly buys his pardon and gets enough cash working on the water to have some options. The one he chooses is to break into the uncharted forest with his young family, staking his claim on a hundred acres of land with no regard for the native blacks who already live there. The struggle between him, the other white settlers, and the natives is dark and brutal. I certainly wasn't rooting for Thornhill or the other settlers. Grenville does a convincing job of portraying the mindset of Thornhill, how he could think it was his right to claim this land, without beating the reader over the head with "deep messages". I thought she also kept an eye on how his time in poverty and as a prisoner affected his need to own land and kept him always wanting more. The book is told from the perspective of the white settlers, but she manages to still show how well the native society functioned, even though it was so different from the white society and the settlers really didn't understand or value it at all.

Overall, I thought Grenville handled this time period with a lot of insight and depth. Though the subject matter was hard to read about, I highly recommend this book.

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LibraryThing member cfbookgroup

We enjoyed this book. We had a big discussion about the symbolism of the ending... and felt we wanted to go back and look at that again. There was a sad inevitability about the unfolding of the story. We discussed his unease... There was a feeling of tension throughout. Did we like William? We did

like Sel. Again, with this book we found that we wanted to find out more about the historical background to the book - the relationship with original inhabitants of Australia. We experienced frustration reading this book, but wondered whether that was an intended and inevitable consequence of the story and the way it was written.

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LibraryThing member kaebs

What an insight about Australia's early settlers and their interaction with indigenous Australians! This book is a family story spanning from London to Sydney to the Hawkesbury. It is based around seldomly discussed historical events, and provides an amazing insight into conflicting human feelings

stemming from individual's personal background, that ultimately result in the various approaches taken by early settlers in their interaction with Aborigines. A great book!

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LibraryThing member nocto

Great book. A fast read but one that's likely to stick with me for a long time. The story is about William Thornhill, born in London in 1777, and transported to New South Wales as a convict in the early nineteenth century; and in a wider sense also about the awful treatment of the aboriginal people

of Australia by the settlers.
Very well written; quite weighty but also easy to read. I'll be on the lookout for Grenville's other books.

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LibraryThing member LukeS

Will Thornhill, a down-on-his-luck London waterman (boat taxi pilot) in the last years of the 18th century, struggles to feed his very young family. Kate Grenville shows graphically that the odds are too long, just as they are for countless other lower-class Londoners at the time. Will turns

inevitably to petty thievery, is caught, tried, and sentenced to be executed. Instead, his ever-loyal wife succeeds in getting the sentence reduced to transportation - the authorities banish Thornhill and his family to Australia in 1806.

After Will's arrival in Australia, the story takes flight. His wife Sal opens a grog shop and the family begins to scrape together a few shillings. Will returns to the boat trade, and they begin to build some wealth. He finally buys out a former employer, and becomes a man of property. Along the way, he convinces Sal that they can and should be landowners along the river, and the stage is set for the drama that plays out. The other settlers along the river wish to drive the aboriginals out and expand their inchoate empires. Thornhill and his brood have the opposite view, down deep. They have no reason to want the Aboriginies out - they have no grievances on either side. However, hatred and events gain momentum, and Thornhill takes part in a skirmish at a friend's settlement in which several are killed on both sides. The native people clear out of the area after that, leaving the white settlers alone. Thornhill becomes wealthy from the river trade, dealing in farm goods and shipping.

But Thornhill has a secret river, living alongside the actual Hawkesbury where he has made his fortune. He has kept his complicity in the deadly fight with the aboriginals a secret from Sal, and it has allowed his family to flourish. He recoginzed the natives as a creative, family-oriented, affable lot, and the battle that made his fortune possible haunts him. He watches the landscape and the river from his villa, looking, and waiting, for something he knows will never come. There will never be a return of the Aboriginies he knew in his early days on the river, just as there will never be redemption for his acts of violence.

Ms. Grenville tells this saga in unblinking language. Her facility with Thornhill's inward journey is sure and true, and lends weight to this weighty narrative. This piece won the Orange Prize in the UK, and it's easy to see why. It encapsulates in one piece of fiction the internal and external conflict surrounding the inescapable poverty of 18th-century London, and the displacement and annihilation of Australia's native people. The book offers a highlight in the loving Thornhill couple, a full and nuanced relationship with an inward odyssey of its own. Ms. Grenville delivers all this in vivid terms, in knowing language, framed in emotional and economic reality. A terrific, memorable, and highly-recommended book.

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LibraryThing member dwate

William Thornhill grows up near the Thames in the 1780’s and is apprenticed to a Waterman. After marrying his childhood companion, Sal, times become very hard and he is driven to steal to supplement his income enough to feed wife and child. When he is inevitably apprehended and sentenced to

death, his wife manages to set in train an appeal for clemency, and the sentence is commuted to transportation to Sydney. His pregnant wife and son are sent on the same ship; she is to be his ‘master’ in the new colony. They survive in primitive Sydney, and William’s boating skills are useful. He discovers that farms are being established on the Hawkesbury and determines to establish his family there and purchase a boat to transport produce from the farms to Sydney. This is a fascinating account of survival in difficult conditions, but also of the tragic clash between the settlers and the original inhabitants. Grenville skilfully conveys William and Sal’s dawning realisation that the ‘savages’ actually have an excellent system for living in this strange land, but the settlers inability to reconcile their conflicting customs and needs leads to a horrifying clash with the aborigines.

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LibraryThing member checkaboo

What an amazing novel this is! I was completely absorbed from cover to cover. I've never been much into Kate Grenville, however I read this as part of the Year 12 English course. Although it never made it on the list of novels for students to read - I loved this book! I loved it for its raw honesty

about our aboriginal history and the way in which is highlighted the mind set of White Australia during our nation's colonisation. Such an important message and a novel that all should read! I struggled at times to read the pages - a mixture of tears as well as anger... mixed sometimes with a feeling of distress and contempt. A tale beatifully told and laced with characters you grow to love and despise...Love, love, loved it!

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LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom

Well, I can definitely see why this one was put on the shortlist for the Booker Prize this year. This was another one of those books I had to read from cover to cover without interruption -- it was that good. That is not a common experience for me, but every so often one book comes along that makes

the read-a-thon necessary. FYI: this is not an uplifting book in any sense of the word, so if that's what you're looking for, don't pick it up. Otherwise, if you don't mind reading with the feeling that "oh, this can't be good" hanging around, you're going to love this book. VERY HIGHLY recommended!

Set first in a somewhat Dickensian England, the story centers on William Thornhill, born into poverty and staying there through his youth & early adulthood. He is apprenticed early and ends up picking up passengers & cargo in a boat along the Thames. However, tragedy strikes and the result is that Thornhill is sent to what is now Australia, then the destination for prisoner transport. His wife & child are also allowed to travel there, and it is there that Will and family will start their new life. However, the Thornhills and other new settlers who take land for themselves have to deal with the native population.

If that were all there was to this book, you could say, been there, done that, but that's luckily not the case here. What really comes through is Will's ambiguity in how he handles the situation, and this is really the heart of the novel. I won't say more, and will leave that to the reader, but all along, as I read, I was struck by the importance of place and home in this novel. Environment and landscape are major characters on their own which cannot be ignored in this novel.

It is a beautiful novel, and now I'm off to find more by this author.

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LibraryThing member lydia1879

So I had to read this book for university.

And I really didn't like it. It's one of those books that I wish I didn't have to read. I definitely would've put it down were it not for the fact that I had to read it for a course. Even then, I half-listened to the last part of the audiobook, just to get

it over and done with. It's such a shame because this is a piece of Australian literature, and I try, as an Australian, to champion as much of its literature as possible.

I don't like William Thornhill. And I know you're not really supposed to, he's not necessarily a likeable character and stands for a lot of unlikeable people that existed at that time, but ughhhhh Will Thornhill I seriously do not care about you, or your family, or your life. Your innate selfishness and sense of entitlement makes me feel ill, and it's so subversive.

But, in all honesty, I think I didn't enjoy this because I know so much early Australian and first contact history. (I studied it in university, as well as a few literature courses, and Spanish~). I know how ugly it all was, and still is. I know how hard it is to find pieces (oral or written) by Aboriginal people from that period.

... so, this, yeah. I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. It feels like another story, told from the same perspective. Yes, there are Aboriginal characters, they do feature, Grenville does include Australian Aboriginal hunting practices and all of those things, but something about them still feels 'Other'. Of course, Grenville may have felt it wasn't her place to write from an Aboriginal perspective when she doesn't identity as Aboriginal, but there's something about the indigenous characters in this story that makes them almost completely voiceless.

The writing is fine, the plot is decent, the character arcs and developments are interesting enough, but I cannot ignore how this book makes me feel.

And so, because of how this book makes me feel, I'll have to give it one star.

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