funstm
Written on Jan 1, 2008
A story of Grenville's ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia and its native people. William Thornhill, a Thames bargeman, is deported to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia in 1806. In this new world of convicts and charlatans, Thornhill tries to pull his family into a position of power and comfort. When he rounds a bend in the Hawkesbury River and sees a gentle slope of land, he becomes determined to make the place his own. But, as uninhabited as the island appears, Australia is full of native people, and they do not take kindly to Thornhill's theft of their home. The Secret River is the tale of Thornhill's deep love for his small corner of the new world, and his slow realization that if he wants to settle there, he must ally himself with the most despicable of the white settlers, and to keep his family safe, he must permit terrifying cruelty to come to innocent people.
- ISBN10 1841957976
- ISBN13 9781841957975
- Publish Date 21 April 2006 (first published 1 July 2005)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 February 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Canongate Us
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English
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