{"id":15695,"date":"2020-09-16T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T23:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/?p=15695"},"modified":"2025-04-26T11:06:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T01:06:59","slug":"a-room-made-of-leaves-kate-grenville-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/a-room-made-of-leaves-kate-grenville-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"A Room Made of Leaves (Kate Grenville) – book review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate Grenville continues her exploration of the early days of the colonisation of Australia in her latest book A Room Made of Leaves. This book purports to be the previously unseen memoirs of Elizabeth Macarthur. Macarthur has long been overshadowed in popular Australian history by her husband John, who is widely reputed to be the founder of Australian sheep industry but also led a military coup against Governor Bligh in the Rum Rebellion. In these memoirs Elizabeth Macarthur (and Grenville) seeks to set the record straight about both their relationship and some major events in the early history of the colony of Sydney.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The memoir takes Elizabeth back to her earliest days as Elizabeth Veale, growing up on her grandfather\u2019s farm in Devon and later being taken in by her best friend\u2019s family. These early chapters feel a little Jane Austen as Elizabeth\u2019s friend Bridie is courted by a young soldier and Elizabeth catches the eye of his friend John Macarthur. Of the two it is Elizabeth who ends up married due to an indiscretion and soon John is seeking his fortune by signing up to travel with the second fleet to the fledgling penal settlement in Sydney. The rest of the book describes the early development of the colony through Elizabeth\u2019s eyes as her husband connives his way to power, fortune and land and she learns how to play on his weaknesses to her own ends.<\/p>\n

This is the fourth of Grenville\u2019s novels of early Sydney, the first being The Secret River. But it is most closely connected to her second of these novels The Lieutenant. That book was a fantasy on the life of William Dawes (in that book called Daniel Rooke), who did astronomy and befriended the local Aboriginal people. A Room Made of Leaves is more solidly based in the historical record so Dawes himself appears as a main character as does chronicler Watkin Tench. It is Dawes and his illicit relationship with Macarthur (a liaison that Grenville intuits from that record) which give rise to the name of the book.<\/p>\n

Despite its setting, Grenville\u2019s Elizabeth Macarthur has a fairly modern sensibility particularly when it comes to her attitudes to the Aboriginal people displaced by the colony. Partly this can be explained by her relationship with Dawes, who himself had at least an amicable relationship with some of the local people. But partly, this feels like Grenville\u2019s editorial hand, giving a more nuanced view of the indigenous groups who were being forced away from their traditional lands than the actual Elizabeth Macarthur may have had.<\/p>\n

Where A Room Made of Leaves is successful is in surfacing the very real influence that Elizabeth Macarthur would have had on the development of Australia\u2019s wool industry, an achievement more usually attributed to her husband. After establishing the farm and bringing in the sheep, John Macarthur spent much of his time in Sydney and then later, in two long stints back in England. Elizabeth Macarthur was a strong, independent woman in her own right, having to deal with the constraints placed upon her and the novel charts her development and all that she learns both from her husband and in from having to deal with him.<\/p>\n

A Room Made of Leaves is another fascinating journey into Sydney\u2019s earliest days. While Grenville plays a little fast and loose with the actual history, she delivers a feel for the place, events and people who shaped the development of the Colony. And she does this, as she often does, through voices that have traditionally been silenced.<\/p>\n

Robert Goodman
\nFor more of Robert\u2019s reviews, please visit his blog Pile By the Bed<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kate Grenville continues her exploration of the early days of the colonisation of Australia in her latest book A Room Made of Leaves. This book purports to be the previously unseen memoirs of Elizabeth Macarthur. Macarthur has long been overshadowed in popular Australian history by her husband John, who is widely reputed to be the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[802],"tags":[3664,3547,117,3549,3500,1708,4945],"class_list":["post-15695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-3664","tag-australian-author","tag-book-review","tag-drama-fiction","tag-fiction-review","tag-historical-fiction","tag-kate-grenville"],"yoast_head":"\nA Room Made of Leaves (Kate Grenville) - book review -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/a-room-made-of-leaves-kate-grenville-book-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Room Made of Leaves (Kate Grenville) - book review -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kate Grenville continues her exploration of the early days of the colonisation of Australia in her latest book A Room Made of Leaves. 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Miles was introduced in McKenzie\u2019s award winning debut The Torrent and returned in Taken. This third book in the series could be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Tipping-Point.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13753,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/our-dark-secret-jenny-quintana-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":15695,"position":2},"title":"Our Dark Secret (Jenny Quintana) – book review","author":"Australian Crime Fiction","date":"March 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are one of those readers who likes to get stuck in early into a novel\u2019s backstory, right back to the early years of what may have pre-empted the enactment of a crime, this slow moving and meticulously detailed mystery will satisfy. \u00a0Our Dark Secret is the story of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Jenny-Quintana-Author-Photo_edited-e1583818436435.jpg?fit=532%2C461&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Jenny-Quintana-Author-Photo_edited-e1583818436435.jpg?fit=532%2C461&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Jenny-Quintana-Author-Photo_edited-e1583818436435.jpg?fit=532%2C461&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":141506,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/the-torrent-dinuka-mckenzie-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":15695,"position":3},"title":"The Torrent (Dinuka McKenzie) – book review","author":"Robert Goodman","date":"June 8, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"With major flooding in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland fresh in the minds of Australians, Dinuka McKenzie\u2019s debut The Torrent, another entry in the ever growing Australian rural crime genre, hits with renewed relevance. The cold open is the discovery of a body, washed away by the flooding\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Torrent.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14291,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/seven-lies-elizabeth-kay-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":15695,"position":4},"title":"Seven Lies (Elizabeth Kay) – book review","author":"Australian Crime Fiction","date":"April 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The life-changing influence of platonic female relationships rarely gets covered in fiction, and for this alone Seven Lies deserves a tip of the hat.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a subject matter many writers have invested in and anyone who has ever been or spent time around a teenage girl would know that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/elizabeth-kay-edited.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/elizabeth-kay-edited.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/elizabeth-kay-edited.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/elizabeth-kay-edited.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14784,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/the-wife-and-the-widow-christian-white-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":15695,"position":5},"title":"The Wife and the Widow (Christian White) – book review","author":"Australian Crime Fiction","date":"June 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Second novels are tricky beasts loaded with expectations, particularly when they come on the heels of recent stellar debuts. \u00a0Australian author Christian White has written another confidently executed work of family drama and generational intrigue that will take up a just a few hours of your life, likely spent dedicated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/christian-white.jpg?fit=800%2C452&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/christian-white.jpg?fit=800%2C452&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/christian-white.jpg?fit=800%2C452&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/christian-white.jpg?fit=800%2C452&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}