The Secret River (Hardcover)

~ Kate Grenville (Author) "In the rooms where William Thornhill grew up, in the last decades of the eighteenth century, no one could move an elbow without hitting the..." (more)
Key Phrases: William Thornhill, Scabby Bill, First Branch (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Grenville's Australian bestseller, which won the Orange Prize, is an eye-opening tale of the settlement of New South Wales by a population of exiled British criminals. Research into her own ancestry informs Grenville's work, the chronicle of fictional husband, father and petty thief William Thornhill and his path from poverty to prison, then freedom. Crime is a way of life for Thornhill growing up in the slums of London at the turn of the 19th century—until he's caught stealing lumber. Luckily for him, a life sentence in the penal colony of New South Wales saves him from the gallows. With his wife, Sal, and a growing flock of children, Thornhill journeys to the colony and a convict's life of servitude. Gradually working his way through the system, Thornhill becomes a free man with his own claim to the savage land. But as he transforms himself into a trader on the river, Thornhill realizes that the British are not the first to make New South Wales their home. A delicate coexistence with the native population dissolves into violence, and here Grenville earns her praise, presenting the settler–aboriginal conflict with equanimity and understanding. Grenville's story illuminates a lesser-known part of history—at least to American readers—with sharp prose and a vivid frontier family. (May)
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–William Thornhill, a boatman in pre-Victorian London, escapes the harsh circumstances of his lower-class, hard-scrabble life and ends up a prosperous, albeit somehow unsatisfied, settler in Australia. After being caught stealing, he is sentenced to death; the sentence is commuted to transportation to Australia with his pregnant wife. Readers are filled with a sense of foreboding that turns out to be well founded. Life is difficult, but through hard work and initiative the Thornhills slowly get ahead. During his sentence, William has made his living hauling goods on the Hawkesbury River and thirsting after a piece of virgin soil that he regularly passes. Once he gains his freedom, his family moves onto the land, raises another rude hut, and plants corn. The small band of Aborigines camping nearby seems mildly threatening: William cannot communicate with them; they lead leisurely hunter/gatherer lives that contrast with his farming labor; and they appear and disappear eerily. They are also masterful spearmen, and Thornhill cannot even shoot a gun accurately. Other settlers on the river want to eliminate the Aborigines. The culture clash becomes violent, with the protagonist unwillingly drawn in. The characters are sympathetically and colorfully depicted, and the experiencing of circumstances beyond any single person's control is beautifully shown.–Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Canongate U.S.; Second Printing edition (April 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841957976
• ISBN-13: 978-1841957975
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #498,942 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, Brilliant and Sad much more..., March 23, 2006

By	Irene Romano "Bookaholic" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Kate Grenville's "The Secret River" is not simply another story of adventure and the pioneering spirit of young Australia (a genre which I seem to never tire of). I picked this one up on my last trip to Oz when a kind bookshop lady insisted I buy it and now am so grateful to her. Grenville has written a brave book about, ultimately, choices to be made and their consequences.

Will Thornhill's life in late 1700's London is truly abysmal, although he eventually marries cheerful, clever, loving Sal. Grenville describes this period of London life very well (painfully so, but absolutely readably) and all that leads to Will being condemned to be hanged and then "pardoned" to life as a convict in Australia.

The hardships of pioneering in Australia, the hard work of those who want to get ahead, the in's and out's of how convicts could become emancipated, the drinking of those who are beyond help, the fear of the whites of the "blacks," the shock of the weather, climate, and so forth are all wonderfully written. Grenville is economical with her prose yet conveys so much. She manages to make us feel the harsh rains, the up's and down's of Will's and Sal's fortunes, all aspects of what needs to be conveyed, in other words, without going on and on. We never become bored, we never never feel anything is missing. I couldn't stop reading the book.

Furthermore, the marriage between Will and Sal was very well done. It could have been sappy in another writer's hands, but because Will and Sal had so much to overcome and because there was so much darkness in this novel, this strong marriage was needed as a technique, as well as being believeable and cheered by the reader. I loved Will and Sal together, and I loved Sal's courage and spunk.

It is, however, Grenville's courageous writing about not only the atrocities committed by the "blacks" (the term used in the novel) against the whites, but especially the whites against the blacks which haunts the reader... and for many reasons. I don't want to give away any endings but I think I can safely say that I kept wondering how much was artistic, how much was character/plot. How much is "white man's guilt" in what I saw (granted, as a first-generation American) was a bit too convenient, or glossed over, or weak or out of character or "let's get to the end"? (From what I understand, Grenville was researching her ancestry when she decided to start this book.)

I loved this novel though I truly was haunted by it, as the author probably intended. I can see why this book became a bestseller in Australia. In being such a courageous book with such a courageous look at the beginnings of this young country, it is also a provocative look at it's beginnings and issues which are, unfortunately, still ongoing, and as with all complex issues which have festered, have no easy answers.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb book, June 22, 2006

By	KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

One of the books I read during my recent holiday was Kate Grenville's brilliant The Secret River. But it was upsetting, too, which is why I've put off commenting. I've a penchant for colonial literature and this is an entry in that category for sure. Yet, what sets it apart from, say, Conrad and others, is its working-class tone.

And, it does make brutally clever sense. The British essentially used convicted felons and their families to settle Australia, or, at lest, its rim. It's shock troops weren't soldiers but the transported working class who quite likely were even more tenacious and driven. That's the story Grenville tells in this utterly affecting novel. It's the sort of book that gives the reader pause, makes the reader sit back a bit to question -- what is happening here? This is a revisionist sort of colonialism that sets a new context ... but doesn't change the outcome. But, then, nothing could.

Superb novel, excellent reading from stem to stern. The writing is particularly fine, herewith a few bits:

"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. Instead of dropping their leaves they cast off their bark so it dangled among the branches like dirty rags. In every direction that the eye travelled from the settlement all it could see were the immense bulges and distances of that grey-green forest. There was something about its tangle that seemed to make the eye blind, searching for pattern and finding none. It was exhausting to look at: different everywhere and yet everywhere the same."
...

"For himself he bought a pair of boots, the first he had ever owned. When he put them on he understood why gentry looked different. Partly it was having money in the bank, but it was also your boots telling you how to walk."

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bleak, harsh, September 3, 2006

By	Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In 1806, William Thornhill, his wife Sal and their 5 year old son, set sail on a convict ship for the settlement at Sydney cove. William was initially sentenced to hang after being sentenced to hang when found guilty of theft, but was given a second chance as a "ticket of leave" man in the colonies, expected to farm the land at his own expense and to help to populate New South Wales. Life there is tough and it takes all of their efforts to scratch out a tiny plot of land to sow with corn to support themselves. Sal never loses her wish to return to England, "home", as it's nostalgically known by the Emancipists, another name for partially freed convicted felons. The tract of land where the family settles is home to a small group of Aborigines who resent the coming of the white man and sabotage his efforts at every turn, while the whites can't accept that these black men, who don't build, farm or make any apparent effort to improve their lives, can have any real claim to the land. This failure to accept each other's way of life, creates friction which leads to killings on both sides and the terrible state of non acceptance which continued for generations. It's a bleak book which recounts, in detail, the terrible harshness of the lives of the early Australian settlers and the differences in the outlook of the white and black communities which still exists today.