Searching for the Secret River [Paperback]

Kate Grenville (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: Text Pub. Co. (January 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1921145390
• ISBN-13: 978-1921145391
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,615,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kate Grenville (kategrenville.com) was born in Sydney, Australia. She's published eight books of fiction, including the multiple prize-winners 'The Secret River', 'The Lieutenant', 'The Idea of Perfection', and 'Lilian's Story'. She's also published three books about the writing process that are classic texts for Creative Writing classes, and a memoir about the research and writing of 'The Secret River'.

Grenville writes about Australia, but her themes are universal: love, violence, and survival. Her characters are often inspired by real historical characters: her own nineteenth century convict ancestor, an early Australian settler; a bag-lady on the streets of 1950s Sydney who quotes Shakespeare for a living; a soldier in the Sydney of 1788 who shares an extraordinary friendship of tenderness and respect with a young Aboriginal girl.

Grenville's international prizes include the Orange Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and a shortlisting for the Man Booker Prize. Her books have been published all over the world and translated into many languages, and two have been made into feature films.

Learn more about Kate Grenville, her books, and how to get hold of them, at kategrenville.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A glimpse into processes and pasts, April 3, 2008

By 

J. Cameron-Smith "Expect the Unexpected" (ACT, Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Searching for the Secret River (Paperback)

In this memoir, Kate Grenville provides some insights into both the drafting of her novel `The Secret River' and her search for her family history. Ms Grenville is a descendant of early settler Solomon Wiseman. She had grown up knowing the outline of his story: his arrival in Sydney as a convict in 1806, the establishment of his business on the Hawkesbury River (from which Wiseman's Ferry takes its name).

The first part of this book is Ms Grenville's personal quest for Wiseman through the records of the Society of Genealogists and the Public Records Office. Identifying the `right' late 18th century Solomon Wiseman is not easy and ultimately Ms Grenville supplements her search through the formal records with her own sense of Solomon Wiseman's presence at Three Cranes Wharf.

Ms Grenville also seeks to obtain a sense of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Hawkesbury at the time they were dispossessed of their land by Wiseman. She does this through returning to the river, which she had first visited as a short-sighted child. Now, as an adult she is able to see and to sense the past more clearly. Some of Ms Grenville's most vivid writing is of the landscape, especially of the river itself. In many ways, it is this description of the landscape which joins the novel to this book more than the people and the history.

In the second part of the book, Ms Grenville describes the process of creating her novel: describing the struggle involved in blending fact, fiction and physical description to bring the characters and the period to life.

I enjoyed reading this book for the insights into the writing of `The Secret River'.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than "a writing memoir", August 5, 2009

By 

Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Searching for the Secret River (Paperback)

Anybody who has read Kate Grenville's award winning The Secret River is bound to be curious about the parallels between Grenville's real ancestor, Solomon Wiseman, and the fictional William Thornhill, both convicts shipped off from London to Australia in the beginning of the nineteenth century. While starting out to write a biography of her great-great-great grandfather, what research did she embark on, what discoveries and mental processes led her in the end to move from a biography to a work of historical fiction? The author, honest, self-aware and self-critical, takes the reader on a fascinating journey into her mind, her feelings and analyses of people and places. Also, and of equal interest to those who have not (yet) read the novel, this "writer's memoir" is an enjoyable "how to" guide for any personal writing project. It contains a few "mantras about writing", such as "never start with a blank page", or "don't wait for time to write", etc. Grenville, who also teaches creative writing, walks the talk herself and the insights she shares with her readers make this a very personal and engaging story.

I use the term "story" deliberately as it reads much more like a story of discovery and less as a writer's guide or even a "memoir". Her exquisite style and rich language that evoke landscapes and city-scapes in such vivid colours and detail that you feel you are walking along with her. Her research into the real great-great-great grandfather was not straight forward, of course, as records were scarce, family stories were not factual and there were numerous Solomon W. and dozens of Wisemans living in London around the same time in the same part of town... How she narrows down her search is also a guide for anybody interested in their own family genealogy - just fascinating. One aspect that helped her later on in her writing (and the reader of the novel will recognize them): she picked up small mementoes, stood on the spot where she imagined her ancestor had been standing. As soon as she made the connection, she can feel him, get under his skin. Only then does the character develop his own persona and as author she has to accept that she follows and he controls.

Immense amount of research spanning several years resulted in filling one major gap in her knowledge or imagination after another. Recreating the language of working class people and fishermen as spoken in the late seventeen nineties was another challenge Grenville had to deal with: Solomon was not literate but later historical documents suggest that he learned to write, although in a stilted, ungrammatical sort of way. While the author made remarkable progress on the male side of her family, the female side, her great-great-great grandmother remained a mystery to her for the longest time. Few information snippets existed in the family archive and memory... so what to do? Her answer, after several false starts, is intriguing, and not only from the perspective of the novel's character development.

The most difficult part of her search and research, however, was to imagine how the real Solomon Wiseman reacted to and interacted with the Aborigines when he and his young family first arrived in Australia. In investigating what might have happened, Grenville realized that she herself lacked much information and knowledge about the life of the aboriginal peoples of her country. Her learning path in this field is deeply moving as she gently and subtly explores what happened at the time of early confrontation and what could have been Wiseman's role in these encounters. For her own life it was another voyage of discovery.

This "writing memoir" is such a beautifully and engagingly written book that it should be seen as an essential compendium for those who read THE SECRET RIVER. For others it is still a great read and probably a motivation to pick up the novel afterwards. [Friederike Knabe]

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative Background to The Secret River, February 10, 2010

By 

J. Smith - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Searching for the Secret River (Paperback)

This is an interesting book about the research that goes into writing an historical novel. My intention in reading it was to beef up a book club presentation on The Secret River (which it did). Grenville writes about the stylistic choices she made in writing The Secret River. She also shares the truth about the characters one meets in the novel. As a stand alone story, the book feels a bit forced, but as a sequel to her novel it is very worth reading.