num_pages: 2
description: The year is 1836. English clergyman William Yates sets sail from London, bound for the mission fields of northern New Zealand. Caught up in a mesmerising love affair that will test the imagination of everyone on board, he is utterly transformed. Against the riveting backdrop of a four-month sea voyage and the vividly imagined society of the ship, the story of Yates unfolds, drawing together the inarticulate hopes of the cabin passengers, the immigrant families of steerage and the raw men and boys of the crew. On landfall at Sydney, camaraderie gives way to treachery and the tight world of the ship breaks apart. Everyone is implicated in the scandal that grips the colonial town, yet it is Yates alone who stands to lose not only his reputation but also his life. Based on a true story, Slow Water is a poised and elegant novel of the highest order with its commitment to historical accuracy exquisitely balanced by its modern attention to eroticism and narrative suspense. Winner of the Deutz Medal for Fiction, Montana Book Awards 2004.
language: English
title: Slow Water
titlecomplete: Slow Water
genres: Fiction, Literature, Novels, 21st Century, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 37
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Miles Franklin Literary Award, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Victorian Premier's Literary Award
category: Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
category: Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry (Montana NZ Awards)
publisher: Victoria University Press