The secret river
By: Kate Grenville
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: Canongate; Distributed by Publishers Group West
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York; [Berkeley, Calif.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 334
ISBN-13: 9781841957975
Subjects: Fiction; Penal colonies; History; Land tenure
Description: 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.
Notes: "Originally published in [Melbourne] Australia in 2005 by the Text Publishing Company; first published in Great Britain in 2005 by Canongate Books Ltd., Edinburgh"--T.p. verso.

Retains t.p. of Edinburgh ed.