The book
As a boy, Daniel Rooke was always an outsider. At school he learned to hide his clever thoughts from his cruel peers; at home his parents were bemused by their bookish son. Daniel could only hope – against all the evidence – that he would one day find his place in life.
By 1788, Daniel has become Lieutenant Rooke, astronomer with the First Fleet as it lands on the unknown shores of New South Wales. As the newcomers struggle to establish a settlement for themselves and their cargo of convicts, and attempts are made to communicate with those who already inhabit this land, Rooke sets up his observatory to chart the stars.
But the place where they have landed will prove far more revelatory than the night sky. Out on his isolated point, Rooke comes to know the local Aboriginal people, and forges a remarkable connection with one child, which will change his life in ways he never imagined.
Based on real events, Kate Grenville’s stunning new novel conveys the poignancy and emotional power of an extraordinary friendship, and how through it a man might find himself: a story that resonates across the oceans and across the centuries.
The Reviews
In lucid prose and perfectly measured strides, Grenville lays down her riveting tale. A novel aglow with empathy, its author's capacious visions still deliver an elemental thrill.
Stephanie Cross, Daily MailA compelling narrative . . . an intelligent, spare, always engrossing imagining of first contact, in which the fictionalization of history allows a comment about current postcolonial race relationships which escapes the didacticism of special pleading.
Patrick Denman Flanery, Times Literary Supplement
Grenville lingers carefully over her exposition of Rooke, setting him up as a singular character. This enhances the drama of the book's later pages, in which his sensibilities are so disastrously different to those of his shipmates. . . . Genuinely affecting, her new novel is another capable tranche of character-based, historical fiction and a worthy foil to its predecessor.
Melissa McClements, Financial TimesGrenville inhabits characters with a rare completeness . . . the reader shares the excitement of his widening consciousness . . . Grenville writers with a poet's sense of rhythm and imagery . . . [and] explores the natural rifts that arise between settlers and native people with a deep understanding of the ambiguities inherent in such conflicts. She occupies the mind of Rooke with a kind of vivid insistence, and his isolation - and moral dilemmas - become ours.
Jay Parini, GuardianGrenville masterfully depicts the brutal simplicity of the early settlers' life in New South Wales . . . through Rooke's peaceable, curious character, the moral tragedy of the Aboriginal compromise and the cowardice of the collective are neatly wrought. Grenville has stuck to what she knows, but she has done it well.
Renee Rowland, The SkinnyA more overtly political book than Grenville's last, but beautifully wrought.
PsychologiesThis engrossing story evokes the excitement of discovery and the beauty of an unspoilt land.
Hugh Bonar, Irish Mail on SundayGrenville's prose is clear and clean, employing a gently leading storytelling style that is especially welcome with a foreign land and a foreign time . . . Grenville has brought imagination and compassion to the source of so much of Australia's retroactive hand-wringing. What distinguishes her portrayal of Aboriginal culture is that or once appreciation, sympathy and admiration get the better of impotent guilt.
Lionel Shriver, Daily TelegraphGrenville is one of Australia's most popular writers, and this novel is a triumph. Read it at once.
The TimesA particular kind of stillness marks Kate Grenville's characters out as uniquely hers . . . Between the words and among them, this is a profoundly uplifting novel - one that leaves you understanding Rooke's premise: that "Truth [needs] hundreds of words, or none."
IndependentA deft historical tale of discovery . . . [Dawes'] qualities shine lambently through Grenville's elegantly calibrated prose . . . The lasting impression of her novel is not of drama, but of a lovely, watchful stillness: a sort of astronomy of the human heart
Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph
