A Room Made of Leaves

Kate Grenville

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Critic Reviews

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Based on 3 reviews on

What if Elizabeth Macarthur--wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in the earliest days of Sydney--had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it?

Marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her heart, the search for power in a society that gave women none: this Elizabeth Macarthur manages her complicated life with spirit and passion, cunning and sly wit. Her memoir lets us hear--at last!--what one of those seemingly demure women from history might really have thought.

A Room Made of Leaves is set in the past, but it's just as much about the present, where lies have the dangerous power to shape reality. This book is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand by one of our most original writers.

Book Details

Publisher: Text Publishing Company
Publish Date: Nov 9th, 2021
Pages: 336
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.00in - 0.00lb
EAN: 9781922458025
Categories: • Alternative History• Literary• Historical - General

About the Author

Kate Grenville is one of Australia's most celebrated writers. Her international bestseller The Secret River is a much-loved classic. It has received local and overseas prizes and has been adapted for TV and the stage. The Secret River was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was described as "a masterwork" by Chicago Tribune. Grenville's other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Dark Places and the Orange Prize winner The Idea of Perfection. Her most recent books are two works of non-fiction, including The Case Against Fragrance. In 2017 she was awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"Vividly rendered, warmly sympathetic, daring in speculative breadth: a full-length portrait in oils of a woman known to most of us only in profile miniature...If Grenville's novel is inspired by provocation, it unfolds as a feeling, organic story." Australian

"Grenville so convincingly creates Elizabeth's voice it is easy to forget her opening warning: 'Do not believe too quickly!'...Grenville's Elizabeth stays with you." Conversation

"Grenville is as canny as she is imaginative...[She] colours your imagination, designs a setting and gives you a push. Australian history is relentlessly inglorious but Grenville allows you to rearrange it through individuals who were not...An interesting prism of a book...Grenville knows exactly what she can do and does it." Monthly

"Historical comeuppance is on order in Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves...White-hot...[An] impressively angry book."--Wall Street Journal

"Grenville invites the reader to reflect on the complex relationship between truth and falsehood, history and fiction...[A] stunning literary achievement." Kirsten Tranter, Guardian

PRAISE FOR KATE GRENVILLE:

"Grenville's psychological acuity, and the sheer gorgeousness of her descriptions of the territory being fought over, pulls us ever deeper into a time when one community's opportunity spelled another's doom." The New Yorker on The Secret River

"Exquisite ...a magnificent work of fiction." Washington Post on The Lieutenant

"Vivid . . . Delightful . . . Grenville's storytelling shines." Publishers Weekly on The Lieutenant