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lisa_setepenre 's review for:
Sarah Thornhill
by Kate Grenville
Sarah Thornhill has grown up on the Hawkesbury River, the daughter of the emancipated convict, William Thornhill. Her life is too harsh to be called blissful, but she is young and in love, and so she is assured of a bright future. But the secrets of the Hawkesbury, the secrets that were made before she was born, cast a pall over her happiness and force her to see the world anew.
Sarah Thornhill is the third book in Kate Grenville's "loose trilogy" about the early colonial days of Australia and, more or less, a direct follow-up to the first book, [b:The Secret River|347698|The Secret River|Kate Grenville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388508143s/347698.jpg|1374275]. I don't think it's necessary to have read it before reading Sarah Thornhill, but it did allow for deeper understanding – you are privy to, more or less, the secrets that Sarah is ignorant to.
However, Sarah Thornhill is not the powerful, tragic read that The Secret River was, and one should not expect it to be. There are similarities, of course – again the clash between the colonisers and the indigenous people is central to this narrative, and again, Grenville depicts the blundering and brutal, however well intentioned, attitudes of the colonisers towards the people they're displacing.
Sarah Thornhill is, instead, the story of discovering the secret atrocities your family has performed and trying to make atonement. It is tempting to read a parallel between Sarah's journey and the reconciliation movement, or to read Sarah as a stand-in for Grenville's struggles with accepting her ancestors' part in the displacement and mistreatment of Aboriginal Australians. However, that, perhaps, flattens the whole story down to allegory and places Grenville on a soapbox. Still, there is power in Grenville's message and at least once I was moved to tears.
Grenville's writing is strong and assured, the environment well-captured, and the character of Sarah vibrant. Sarah is brash, tactless and wilful, not wanting to be a "proper lady", riding side-saddle and ensnaring a husband, instead chafing against the restrictions her stepmother, society and father impose. But there is a soulful quality about her that makes later events seem like a believable progression.
The ending does seem implausible, but what I was able to take away from it was stronger than my concern about its believability.
All up, Sarah Thornhill is a quiet book, not so much concerned with what happened, but the question of making amends and how to do that. Regardless, it was a moving, sublime read.
Sarah Thornhill is the third book in Kate Grenville's "loose trilogy" about the early colonial days of Australia and, more or less, a direct follow-up to the first book, [b:The Secret River|347698|The Secret River|Kate Grenville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388508143s/347698.jpg|1374275]. I don't think it's necessary to have read it before reading Sarah Thornhill, but it did allow for deeper understanding – you are privy to, more or less, the secrets that Sarah is ignorant to.
However, Sarah Thornhill is not the powerful, tragic read that The Secret River was, and one should not expect it to be. There are similarities, of course – again the clash between the colonisers and the indigenous people is central to this narrative, and again, Grenville depicts the blundering and brutal, however well intentioned, attitudes of the colonisers towards the people they're displacing.
Sarah Thornhill is, instead, the story of discovering the secret atrocities your family has performed and trying to make atonement. It is tempting to read a parallel between Sarah's journey and the reconciliation movement, or to read Sarah as a stand-in for Grenville's struggles with accepting her ancestors' part in the displacement and mistreatment of Aboriginal Australians. However, that, perhaps, flattens the whole story down to allegory and places Grenville on a soapbox. Still, there is power in Grenville's message and at least once I was moved to tears.
Grenville's writing is strong and assured, the environment well-captured, and the character of Sarah vibrant. Sarah is brash, tactless and wilful, not wanting to be a "proper lady", riding side-saddle and ensnaring a husband, instead chafing against the restrictions her stepmother, society and father impose. But there is a soulful quality about her that makes later events seem like a believable progression.
The ending does seem implausible, but what I was able to take away from it was stronger than my concern about its believability.
All up, Sarah Thornhill is a quiet book, not so much concerned with what happened, but the question of making amends and how to do that. Regardless, it was a moving, sublime read.