We’re living through a time in which lies and deception have a reach and power and effectiveness that’s unprecedented.
I’m pretty sure her fame is not due to me, lol, but pleased you might think so! The point is to interpret with respect and integrity? Three-time winner: Small Publisher of the Year, Kate will be touring the country to promote, Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Viking Books. So some of you might know that Kate Grenville has a new book coming out this year. I don’t subscribe to the theory that fiction writers ‘ought’ to write this or that, or that for various reasons they’re ‘not allowed’ to write something.”. I already know about EM. Those women could only speak within the bounds of what was permitted to them: letters that could be read by the whole household, novels that would only be published if they weren’t too shocking.
One Life is a deeply moving account of her mother’s life that will enchant and inspire. I’ve yet to read Kate’s new novel, although I will over the next few days (she’s sent me a draft). So perhaps Grenville’s book will bring a different sensibility to readers (although I confess to preferring non-fiction when it comes to biographies). Thanks for the heads up! I’m also perfectly fine with fiction writers taking a story in a direction for which there is no concrete evidence. 205 talking about this. Welcome Stephen, and thanks for your insights. As Lisa says, your biography is not a dry, dull tome, but rather a readable story which clearly marks out what is known, and what you have guessed or assumed from the knowledge you do have. The innermost layer is the real letters of the real person Elizabeth Macarthur, but even that layer cracks away to reveal them as clever fictions constructed by Macarthur herself. Great post, Michelle. In turn the letters are embedded in the “long-lost memoirs” of Elizabeth Macarthur, which in turn are framed and distanced by bookends that Elizabeth Macarthur tells us she wrote in order to set the record straight. In many ways Nance’s story echoes that of many mothers and grandmothers, for whom the spectacular shifts of the twentieth century offered a path to new freedoms and choices. Just catching up with emails … as you know I really enjoyed your Elizabeth Macarthur book, giving her overdue recognition for her role in the Macarthur family success. In beautiful and compelling prose, Kate Grenville writes a fascinating story about her mother's life that echoes the lives of women both yesterday and today. However, I don’t think we should ever say there’s only one version of a person’s life. So when Michael Heyward rang me to say Kate Grenville had asked him to ask me if I’d like to have a coffee with her, I was surprised, to say the least. So how is ascribing creative elements to EM’s life going to contribute anything to our understanding of people or the world or our fraught history? Readers, she was lovely. So, yes, I’d be happy to read another perspective on EM’s life – and perhaps, in a way, I’m more likely to read a fictional version than a new biography, because you’ve done the recent biography and done it well. We spent a wonderful hour or so talking about Elizabeth Macarthur, cultural appropriation, gendered responses to books, research methodologies and I can’t even remember what else. Thanks Sue. From the letters she left, our picture of her is of the perfect wife: uncomplaining, devout, unfailingly cheerful. Intelligent, compassionate, strategic and dead sexy, Grenville’s Macarthur is an unforgettable character who makes us question everything we thought we knew about our colonial past. Also articulate (obviously) and kind and endearingly worried about what I might think about her new novel. So when it comes to Australia’s colonial history, I suppose those who *want* to know will try and read widely, and those who want educational entertainment may not.
These days the only people I speak to at Text are the operational people (who help me to buy boxes of my book, which I sometimes hand sell when I give talks) and the publicists. It made me realise how much of our history is male focused. Yawn. If they write badly, or disrespectfully, or inaccurately by all means call them out and hold them to account, but do let them write. But she is Grenville, and ordinarily I would read anything of hers, just because. What a joy. Grenville, Kate (1988). In writing Elizabeth Macarthur’s imagined tell-all, I wanted to take the image of the devout, demure, compliant and uncomplaining woman and blast it open. What can any novelist add to that experience, to make it worthwhile reading when there are so many other books to read? (I wonder how many people believe Ned Kelly had a wife, after Carey’s True History. The book has been compared to Thomas Keneally's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and to Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly … won the Orange Prize. On Kate Grenville, I found some of her books inaccessible and the TV adaptation of The Secret River underwhelming. But as Anne Summers said at the launch of the Stella Prize, (I’m paraphrasing) if you want to be taken seriously as women writers, write about serious things…. So too is the perplexing and often vexed relationship between them. I might be wrong, I often am, but I’ll be waiting to see what my favourite reviewers think of it (the ones who tell it like it is and no sugar-coating) before I invest my time in it.
Better, I reckon, to explore that relationship than to draw a bold line between the two genres. I’ve had one meeting with Michael Heyward, the publisher at Text, and he seems like a very nice chap but he and I are only on nodding terms. My guess was that all those goody-gumball letters she left must have been, to put it bluntly, fiction. Visit our website: www.textpublishing.com.au I’m afraid my magnanimity ebbs and flows! If not, I can just copy the text, but will need to know the copyright status of the photo of KG. I feel I know about her life, her actions, and her spirit and her failings. I attempt this in my experimental book Zoffany’s Daughter, the essence of which is at https://www.zoffanysdaughter.com. Do you have a reblog button on your blog that you can enable? Maybe. And I’m a big Atkinson fan so will look forward to his next work with great interest. I reckon it will fail the both the KG and the Anne Summers ‘important’ and ‘serious’ tests. Text Publishing. All this said, my favourite Grenville, like yours, is her contemporary novel, The idea of perfection. I agree, and like you think the relationship between genres, and between fiction and non-fiction is endlessly fascinating. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. I know for a fact that my husband’s version of my life is quite different from my mother’s!! ‘Evocative and fascinating, this brave and heartfelt tribute will appeal to anyone interested in their own family story, Australian history, or the lives of women.’ And, for the record, I completely agree with you regarding fiction writers, ie “I strongly feel that fiction writers can do whatever they like. Wherever one set of people has power over another, they’ll construct a story about their dominance that makes it seem acceptable. I identified with all of your reactions.
kategrenville.com THE CASE AGAINST FRAGRANCE KATE GRENVILLE RRP A$24.99 NON-FICTION PB ISBN 9781925355956, 208pp EBOOK ISBN 9781925410310 RIGHTS HELD World 8 TEXT PUBLISHING FEBRUARY 2017 DARREN JAMES Alas, I can’t really write a blog post about it because I haven’t read her book, and don’t really have any intention of doing so. Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Since then we’ve corresponded by email and I think it’s fair to say we’ve begun to be friends. I wish you continued success with your book. In other ways Nance was exceptional. About Elizabeth Macarthur… Kate Grenville is, like me, one of Text Publishing’s stable of authors and I’ve known for quite a while that this book was coming, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. ISBN 1-921145-25-0. Would I read another book about Elizabeth? A novel. Draft by draft this became a book about secrets and lies, fake stories and hidden truths. ISBN 0-330-33549-9 (Alternative title: Albion's Story). I own quite a large stack of Grenville books, but I was too shy to take all of them along to be signed so I just took my favourite – a small paperback edition of The Idea of Perfection. Welcome Jennifer, and thank you – I’m so glad you enjoyed EM’s story. She probably is, given, as you and I agree I think, that there really is no one interpretation of anyone? In the Australian context, old stories about colonisation and Indigenous people have only relatively recently been exposed for the self-serving myths they were. The story explores what might have happened when Europeans colonised land already inhabited by Aboriginal people. Sorry this is so long, I should have written a blog post about it! (If this is a wordpress blog you’ll find it in WP admin somewhere.) She’s a famous person, and a large part of that is due to you.
Misinformation, fakery, lies for commercial or political gain: this is the toxic air we breathe daily. I’ve not published like you, but I think it does take magnanimity to accept others’ work about subjects we spend so long on, and become attached to, one way or the other. Indeed, Michelle should relish the prospect of Kate Grenville drawing attention to her own fine biography by encouraging, intentionally or otherwise, readers to ask the question: how much of this is ‘true’? Picador. Kate will be touring the country to promote One Life. He’s not wrong (until you win a prize, I guess, when of course the judges have shown remarkable acumen). The Idea of Perfection. A Room Made of Leaves. And actual me just thinks there’s nothing I can do about it, so I may as well just watch with interest and see what happens. The novel will be called A Room Made of Leaves and according to Books+Publishing,”This extraordinary novel takes as its starting point the story of Elizabeth Macarthur in the infant colony of Sydney, but breaks it open into a playful dance of possibilities.”, Magnanimous me thinks ‘I don’t own Elizabeth’s story – no-one does – so surely anyone who wants to write about her should go right ahead.’, Defensive me thinks ‘What can possibly be said that I haven’t already said?’, Churlish me thinks ‘Now that my little book has had it’s 15 minutes of fame it will be pushed even further to the back of the shelf.’, Optimistic me thinks ‘Maybe I’ll sell a few extra copies to people who read the novel and want to know more.’. Not exactly a gripping narrative!! But when you look more closely at that picture, it falls apart. U.Q.P. As for prizes – I can’t speak to KG’s motives as I don’t know, but as Julian Barnes says, literary prizes are just posh bingo. ISBN 0-7022-2174-0. Then I got a phone call from my publisher, and that NEVER happens. Wow Michelle, what a turn of events.
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