Woman of the Inner Sea [Paperback]

Thomas Keneally (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1994

A moving story of heroism, filled with vivid characterizations, suspense, and a keen sense of mystery--Kenneally's most compelling work since his Booker Prize-winning Schindler's List. A woman who loses her husband's love and attention to his mistress and his political dealings, and her children to a tragic fire, attempts to start anew in the Australian outback.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The latest effort from Booker Prize-winning Australian author Keneally (Schindler's List, The Playmaker , etc.) is one of his best. He sets it on native turf and uses glimpses of his homeland's history, folkore and natural wonders to lift intriguing events to the level of riveting, sophisticated thriller. Based on fact and infused with Keneally's colorful imagination, the story follows Kate Gaffney-Kozinski, wife of a wealthy construction empire scion and mother of two, through the disintegration of her marriage, the deaths of family members, and her "transformation" as a barmaid at the Railway Hotel in Myambagh, far inland from the coastal Sydney of her early life. Under the avuncular eye of the pub owner and his not-so-friendly wife, Kate settles into this bastion of ranchers, sheep shearers and barflies and takes up with softhearted pensioner Jelly (short for gelignite: dynamite). When Kate's husband's goon Burnside--a finely drawn personification of the banality of evil--shows up with divorce settlement papers, Myambagh is struck by one of the periodic floods for which it is famous. Kate suffers another loss and she must flee again into the outback--this time with Jelly's friend Gus and his pet emu and kangaroo. Keneally displays a rueful appreciation for the double-edged sword of language in his retelling of an aboriginal tale in which the animals decide to give the word beast to humans. And as he brilliantly illustrates how the best-laid plans can go awry, he demonstrates that the true test of people is in how they cope with life's major and minor catastrophes.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Despite her hyphenated last name, sturdy Kate Gaffney-Kozinski is not altogether a modern woman; she's abandoned work for the joys of raising her two children in a lovely home on the Australian coast. When tragedy strikes, taking the lives of both children when Kate is not at home, her adulterous husband brutally blames her for their deaths. Kate flees to the outback, working as a barmaid, then flees again when a cataclysmic flood and her husband's henchman hit town simultaneously. This time, Kate is accompanying Gus, who has a full-grown kangaroo and emu in tow; it's not so much gentle Gus but something about his peaceful, long-suffering kangaroo that reawakens her to life. Keneally's tale is rich in detail and characterization, but the writing can be maddeningly elliptical. It takes forever to discover the tragedy of Kate's life, and the result is a curious sense of restlessness throughout half the novel. Still, Keneally is an important writer to include in literary collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/92.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 277 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Softcover Ed edition (March 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452271770
• ISBN-13: 978-0452271777
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #981,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books, March 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Woman of the Inner Sea (Paperback)

I read this book several years ago and can vividly recall how lyrical the prose and story are. I knew nothing of it, and so hate to reveal anything - even the Kirkus review is too detailed. Kate, our heroine, is full of sorrow - as her uncle refers to her. After her beloved children are killed in a fire, she walks away from life into the Australian outback. More startling to me even than her children's death is the event that leads to her return to Sydney. One of my friends thought the end was unsatisfying, but I found it perfect. Keneally is just an incredible author - read this, then The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, then Schindler's List. Why he isn't better-known in the U.S. is beyond me.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And this man studied to be a priest!, January 13, 2001

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Woman of the Inner Sea (Paperback)

For many years, English explorers in Australia were convinced the centre of the island continent hid a vast ocean. The dream of an easy, controlled passage from the settled south- east coast to Asian markets remained a fixation. Charles Sturt is renowned in Australia for lugging a huge whaleboat into the arid Centre without ever finding a place to float it. John Eyre glimpsed the elusive lake that bears his name - a body of water which can extended for hundreds of kilometres or nearly disappear depending on far distant and erratic rainfall. Australia can have an Inner Sea, but it's an ephemeral phenomenon, appearing with devastating suddeness, then dribbling away into the desert sands. When human communities exist where that sea wants to form, extensive damage to crops and homes may result.

Thomas Keneally places the story of Kate Gaffney-Kosinski in this environment. Her children lost in a house fire, she flees Sydney for the land of the Inner Sea. Her emotional swag is laden with her Irish heritage and the vagaries of her faithless husband. Heavier than these, however, is the sense guilt borne of thinking herself responsible for the lost of little Bernard and Siobhan. She's not certain what the Centre will provide in the way of healing power, but it's away from the scenes of so much grief.

Arriving at an Outback village, Kate resides in a pub, trying to bury her past. But this town is known as the Venice of Wrangle Shire. Rains from the North brings water gathering in the fields around the town. Kate, who has taken up with Jelly, an explosives expert, is swept into events nearly as helpless as those surrounding the loss of her children. Her losses haven't ended, however, and her strengths will continue to be tested even in this remote place.

Keneally uses two of Australia's most prominent animals, a kangaroo and an emu in the keeping of Gus Schulberger. This aspect of the book seems contrived at first. Gus illustrates a character scattered through Australian literature - the battler, a man [invariably] "striving against banks and weather" in his efforts to gain security. Accompanied by creatures of almost divine status in Australia, Gus typifies the European insertion into that harsh, extensive world.

It's for women to tell us how well Keneally has done in portraying their feelings and responses in the circumstances Kate endures. From a man's point of view, he's succeeded. Kate's being subjected to various disturbing pressures are portrayed admirably. He is a master story teller and this book is no departure from his other successes. What would the world have lost if he had succeeded in pursuing his original ambition to enter the Catholic priesthood in Sydney? Fortunately, three dozen books later, he remains a major figure in the literature of historical fiction. Without peer in this realm, each of his books deserves space on your shelves. Many of them are eligible for repeat reading. Woman of the Inner Sea is one of those.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fantasy of Reinvention, April 13, 2003

By 

Stephanie Rivera (West Kingston, Rhode Island United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Woman of the Inner Sea, A (Hardcover)

The central idea of this book, it seemed to me, has to do with abandoning one life for another. If one thinks of this as essentially the American idea of reinventing oneself, Thomas Kenneally informs us that it is also very Australian, and rightly so, for Australia is a land that is full of hiding places for those who wish not to be found. The protagonist is a woman who can no longer bear the agony of her existence after the death of her children--and so attempts to do away with her identity and her history by traveling to the Outback under an assumed name. Simple enough, one might think--but here is where Kenneally's genius takes root, for we are taken on a wild and wooly ride as Kate becomes deeply embedded in the lives of a diverse set of characters, unschooled and totally remote from the sophistition and nuance that formed her own upbringing. A wild bunch indeed, they are incredibly touching in their sense of loyalty and courage. There is a surreal quality to this adventure that is heightened even more by the introduction of two pets, a kangaroo and an emu, native species which are somehow incorporated into this world of carnival and misadventure--an Australian "Don Quixote." A brilliant and stirring enactment--let them try to make a film of it!!