Product Description

Kate Grenville's "The Secret River" was one of the most loved novels of 2006. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and awarded the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, the story of William Thornhill and his journey from London to the other side of the world has moved and exhilarated hundreds of thousands of readers. "Searching for the Secret River" tells the story of how Grenville came to write this wonderful book. It is in itself an amazing story, beginning with Grenville's great-great-great grandfather. Grenville starts to investigate her ancestor, hoping to understand his life. She pursues him from Sydney to London and back, and slowly she begins to realise she must write about him. "Searching for the Secret River" maps this creative journey into fiction, and illuminates the importance of family in all our lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102641 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-05
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 230 pages

Review
"We have had to wait five years for The Secret River but the wait has been worth it... Splendidly paced, passionate and disturbing." The Times "Grenville, as ever, describes an Australia so overwhelmingly beautiful that readers will lust after its sunbaked soul too." Daily Telegraph "A sad book, beautifully written and, at times, almost unbearable with the weight of loss, competing distresses and the impossibility of making amends." Observer "Grenville's skill is to turn what could have been too obviously a representative moral fable into a rich novel of character." Sunday Telegraph"

About the Author
Kate Grenville was born in Sydney. Her last novel, The Secret River, is tremendously successful. Her previous novel, The Idea of Perfection, won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2001 and became a long-running bestseller. Her six other works of fiction have won numerous awards. Kate Grenville lives in Sydney with her family.

Customer Reviews

A fascinating lifting of the veil
For anyone who read and loved The Secret River as I did, Searching for the Secret River will be a riveting and unique insight into how this great novel came to be written. Even if you haven't read The Secret River I still think you would be mesmerised, such is the quality of Grenville's prose and her insights into not just her past but all our pasts. Magnificent stuff.

Unveiling the secret
I gobbled up this book almost as avidly as I had consumed the novel 'The Secret River' that was its subject. The story of Kate Grenville's research takes us on a journey to Old East London and her discovery there of the kinds of astonishing events which shaped in the lives of her ancestor and of so many of those early convict settlers transported to Australia instead of being strung up on a London gallows. Thence to Sydney and eventually to 'taking up' land on the Hawkesbury River. Land stolen from the aboriginal inhabitants whose home it was for tens of thousands of years before the English invasion. A longing for knowledge of that land theft, what it cost both sides in the struggle, let alone social justice for the Aboriginal people today comes through more explicitly here, whilst implicit in the novel. A compelling read this, and it has fanned the spark in me that has long simmered to find out more of the truth in my own family of pioneering free settlers in Australia. I cannot know how those without this personal interest in her themes and her research might respond to this work. Kate Grenville is a story teller of consumate skill who so satisfies her reader that I highly recommend this book to all, especially those who have read the novel and have the curiosity to wonder, 'How did she do that?'.

Searching for the secret River
Having enjoyed the book Secret River as recomended by a BBC Radio Four program. I was interested to learn of "Searching for the Secret River" book.
I was not dissapointed. It was a clear and enjoyable read informative. The discritions were so real and Kate Greenways reserch was an exciting journey.
Likewise the native story and customs.
Having compelted Kate's book I imedately reread her "Secret River". Understanding and enjoying the skills of Kates writting.