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xanthea's review against another edition
"The others enjoyed it in a desperate way. In the end I think there were all relieved to see me go so that they could spring back into their hard, passionate struggle against the earth."
lisa_setepenre's review
1.0
As a married woman, Kate is left to tend to their children and the house alone while her husband seeks employment and money away from Forbes. But Kate is used to the men being away. Her father died when she was young and, as she grew into adulthood, her brothers were often away. At first gaoled, then off seeking their fortune and lastly outlaws on the run. Kate then must try to make a life in the aftermath of their tragedy and notoriety.
Sister Kate by Jean Bedford was published in 1982 and fictionalises the life of Kate Kelly, the sister of the infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly. Kate Kelly herself has become quite an iconic figure her own right, though I believe this has less to do with history and more to do with the folklore surrounding her. Regardless, the historical Kate is equally fascinating as the folkloric Kate.
I was excited about this book. I'm fascinated by Ned Kelly and always eager to get my hand on any books, fiction or non-fiction, that tell women's stories. Sister Kate, then, seemed to suit me to a T. The problem is it just wasn't very good.
The novel is divided into three sections, the first dealing with the Kelly Outbreak, the third with Kate's decline and eventual death, while the middle section serves as a bridge between those two points.
The first section, written in the first person, is ripe with potential, but instead Bedford constantly holds the readers at a distance, delivering most of the detail in exposition and information dumps. Bedford does render this exposition in beautiful prose, but as grand as the images she invokes are, it doesn't come close to immersing me in the story. I can acknowledge the difficulty in trying to retell the Outbreak from Kate's perspective when so often she was on the fringes of major events, but even when Bedford is writing about an invented scene, there's a distance, a vagueness.
This may be deliberate, meant to reflect the mental state of Kate as she looks back at her life in her last years, dampened and confused by opioids and alcohol, but regardless, it didn't work. I wanted to feel Kate experiencing these things in vivid detail, not be held at a distance.
The second section, made up of a few loosely connected chapters written in third person, suited my tastes better – finally I was getting detail, finally I was getting a strong sense of emotion. However, I did find the chapters disjointed. The final section is rendered in a mix of first and third person – which I did find a little confusing. Again, I felt that distance between Kate and the story, and I didn't really want to.
This was Bedford's first novel and while she shows some skill - some of the images she conjures up are beautiful – it also feels like the work of an author who's not confident with their own work. There is some awkwardness in the writing. As I mentioned above, the switching between first person and third person narration is confusing and strange. There's also the fact that Kate repeatedly referred to her brother as Edward, not Ned, which seems oddly formal given the context and the relationship they were meant to have, and seems odd given that he appears to have been best known as Ned (Joe Byrne, his best friend, reportedly even called him "Neddy").
I'm going to actually quote the worst offenders in Bedford's prose because some of them truly need to go in the hall of shame or something.
Location 568, Kate on losing her virginity:
Location 543, Kate on the loyalty of Ned's friends:
Onto historical accuracy. Bedford's portrayal of Kate, with her drug and alcohol addiction and presumed suicide, is not drawn from any reliable sources and upset Kate Kelly's descendants. The romantic relationship between Kate and Joe Byrne is fictional, but does help to bring a bit of spark to the novel, despite manifesting oddly towards the end, so I can't be too upset about it. Bedford also has Kate present on the fringes of the Stringybark Creek murders, which is not supported by any evidence and feels odd.
There are few clunkers, too. Kate has photos of the gang developed at a chemist, like she dropped off a roll of film, ignoring that photography and cameras simply didn't work like that in 1880. At one stage, her mother talks to Joe Byrne's mother about Aaron Sherritt being a traitor – despite the fact that Ellen Kelly was in gaol for the duration of the Kelly Outbreak. Bedford also indulges in the old chestnut of the gang being crossdressers – a distortion of some variant of folklore, not reality.
All up, Sister Kate is an interesting novel, but one that I admire the premise of far more than I do the execution.
Sister Kate by Jean Bedford was published in 1982 and fictionalises the life of Kate Kelly, the sister of the infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly. Kate Kelly herself has become quite an iconic figure her own right, though I believe this has less to do with history and more to do with the folklore surrounding her. Regardless, the historical Kate is equally fascinating as the folkloric Kate.
I was excited about this book. I'm fascinated by Ned Kelly and always eager to get my hand on any books, fiction or non-fiction, that tell women's stories. Sister Kate, then, seemed to suit me to a T. The problem is it just wasn't very good.
The novel is divided into three sections, the first dealing with the Kelly Outbreak, the third with Kate's decline and eventual death, while the middle section serves as a bridge between those two points.
The first section, written in the first person, is ripe with potential, but instead Bedford constantly holds the readers at a distance, delivering most of the detail in exposition and information dumps. Bedford does render this exposition in beautiful prose, but as grand as the images she invokes are, it doesn't come close to immersing me in the story. I can acknowledge the difficulty in trying to retell the Outbreak from Kate's perspective when so often she was on the fringes of major events, but even when Bedford is writing about an invented scene, there's a distance, a vagueness.
This may be deliberate, meant to reflect the mental state of Kate as she looks back at her life in her last years, dampened and confused by opioids and alcohol, but regardless, it didn't work. I wanted to feel Kate experiencing these things in vivid detail, not be held at a distance.
The second section, made up of a few loosely connected chapters written in third person, suited my tastes better – finally I was getting detail, finally I was getting a strong sense of emotion. However, I did find the chapters disjointed. The final section is rendered in a mix of first and third person – which I did find a little confusing. Again, I felt that distance between Kate and the story, and I didn't really want to.
This was Bedford's first novel and while she shows some skill - some of the images she conjures up are beautiful – it also feels like the work of an author who's not confident with their own work. There is some awkwardness in the writing. As I mentioned above, the switching between first person and third person narration is confusing and strange. There's also the fact that Kate repeatedly referred to her brother as Edward, not Ned, which seems oddly formal given the context and the relationship they were meant to have, and seems odd given that he appears to have been best known as Ned (Joe Byrne, his best friend, reportedly even called him "Neddy").
I'm going to actually quote the worst offenders in Bedford's prose because some of them truly need to go in the hall of shame or something.
Location 568, Kate on losing her virginity:
I did not realise how like a frog a person could become.Frogs: totally romantic and sexy.
Location 543, Kate on the loyalty of Ned's friends:
Also they loved my brother. They loved him as much as men can other men without it being the disgusting thing Aaron later suggested. I do not know what physical release men can find together, but I cannot believe it is the mockery that Aaron made it out. Not that I think they loved like that — yet, maybe they did. They had all been in prison where they such things are common and they lived without women for long stretches. It horrified me when Aaron suggested it, but now I hope there were times when they moaned away their need and their fear in each other's arms.I get the feeling that there was too much overthinking going on and not enough self-editing when this was written. I also get the sense that I was about to run smack bang into a wall of homophobia and oh god. But then the writing veers frantically away only to veer back and it's just a car crash of a paragraph. And then I start thinking about the incestuous undertones in it, about Kate hoping her brother and her lover "moaned away their need and fear in each other's arms…"
Onto historical accuracy. Bedford's portrayal of Kate, with her drug and alcohol addiction and presumed suicide, is not drawn from any reliable sources and upset Kate Kelly's descendants. The romantic relationship between Kate and Joe Byrne is fictional, but does help to bring a bit of spark to the novel, despite manifesting oddly towards the end, so I can't be too upset about it. Bedford also has Kate present on the fringes of the Stringybark Creek murders, which is not supported by any evidence and feels odd.
There are few clunkers, too. Kate has photos of the gang developed at a chemist, like she dropped off a roll of film, ignoring that photography and cameras simply didn't work like that in 1880. At one stage, her mother talks to Joe Byrne's mother about Aaron Sherritt being a traitor – despite the fact that Ellen Kelly was in gaol for the duration of the Kelly Outbreak. Bedford also indulges in the old chestnut of the gang being crossdressers – a distortion of some variant of folklore, not reality.
All up, Sister Kate is an interesting novel, but one that I admire the premise of far more than I do the execution.
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