Kate Grenville’s The Secret River moved and exhilarated thousands of readers when it was published in 2005. They marvelled at the subtlety of its language, and the power of Grenville’s storytelling. And they recognised that this simple tale of a poor convict family settling on the banks of the Hawkesbury River in the early nineteenth century represented a landmark moment in Australian fiction.

Grenville had taken the novel to the frontier of European settlement and written a profoundly original and disturbing work about what happened there. Searching for the Secret River is the extraordinary story of how Kate Grenville came to write her award-winning novel.

It all begins with her ancestor Solomon Wiseman, transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life, who later became a wealthy man and built his colonial mansion on the Hawkesbury. Increasingly obsessed with his story, Grenville pursues him from Sydney to London and back, and then up the Hawkesbury itself. Slowly she begins to realise she must write about him, and begins to discover what kind of book she will write.

Grenville opens the door and invites the reader into her writing room, and tells us about how this novel was formed, the research she did, the false starts she made and the frustrations she experienced. Searching for the Secret River is a great book about the writing of a great novel.

Praise for Searching for the Secret River:

‘Grenville’s rule of thumb—Never begin with an empty page, Don’t wait for the mood, write from a question, not an answer—are gold for any student of creative writing. So is the inclusion of the small, rough sections from her early drafts.’
— Dellia Falconer, Age

About the Author

Kate Grenville is the author of eight books of fiction and four books about the writing process, including Writing from Start to Finish. Her novels include The Idea of Perfection, The Lieutenant, Lilian's Story, and the Orange Prize-winning The Secret River.

ordered online and sent directly as a wishlist title for oppem's Birthday RABCK Group 2022

happy belated birthday

happy reading

;)

happy reading

;)

This will go to the top of the toppling pile! thank you again!

Grenville maps her journey through the research and writing of her novel The Secret River, from the starting point of her ancestor Solomon Wiseman who built a villa on the bend of the Hawkesbury River, through the development of the characters and the many discoveries and revelations along the way. It is very interesting to see how the book was crafted; I did not imagine so many difficulties and pitfalls. Some things that struck me:
- cutting up the manuscript and rearranging the chapters and paragraphs (I have done that, in my editing days, sorting out everything on the office floor)
- toilets - I remember asking my mother why the characters in my Enid Blyton books never went to the toilet, even though they had been kidnapped and locked up in caves or elsewhere for several days. And I remember my mother's answer: People don't do that in books. So, I was not the only one to ask myself the question.
- Depicting accents. Grenville takes a lesson from E. Annie Proulx, and I wish another writer would do that: Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) who has annoyed me profoundly in the last two books I read, Lethal White (awful Yorkshire accent) and The Ink Black Heart, with one character's speech riddled with apostrophes to show the dropped aitches, unbearable.
- the realization, when listening to a group of Aboriginal people talking together, that she was the one speaking a foreign language.

All written in a very easy, lucid style. I am looking forward to reading Lilian's Story.

making some space at home so this will go on the bookbox shelf.