The Secret River

By: Kate Grenville

Narrated by: Paul Blackwell

In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife, Sal, and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand. But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim 100 acres for himself.

Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan, and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them. Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

©2005 Kate Grenville (P)2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Producer: Heather Steen.

Critic reviews

" The Secret River is a powerful, highly credible account of how a limited man of good instincts becomes involved in enormity and atrocity. It is, at one remove, a sane and moving allegory of Australian development. It has quiet drama and drama of the hectic ghastly breakneck kind. It would make a fine film. It has the subtlety of being a sort of Swiss Family Robinson saga about the Australian dream. In historical terms it dramatises the settler's dream and it all but climaxes in its representation of the Australian nightmare. Then there is calm and sadness and the colour drained from the dream. The Secret River is a historical novel, full of contemporary insight and it is also a subtle expression in fictional terms of the myth of collective guilt for the fate of the Aborigines. It is to Kate Grenville's credit that she never surrenders her sense of the individual faces she captures as she tells this story. I suspect a lot of [listeners] are going to find this book both subtle and satisfying." ( The Age)

"One of the most entertaining, accomplished, engaging novels written in this country." ( The Courier Mail)

Vivid, well-told, life-story novel

I found this to be a very good conventional novel, strong all round and entertaining. It tells the story of a poor boy from London ho ends up seeking his fortune in Australia. The dialogue is excellent, and the narrator is superb.

Sad but good

Most of this book was really great - I liked the parts describing life in England to how someone came to be sent to Australia and what life was like once they arrived. It gets quite depressing at the end but it had. Will is a very real character that isn’t perfect and like us all, it shows how just thinking something isn’t good enough if your actions don’t match.

Magnificent historical fiction on settlers of NSW,

If there is any story that beautifully captures the pain and agony of a prisoner from London forcibly relocated to Sydney, New South Wales, this story is it. This is a story of guts, risk-taking, heart, love, courage and much more. From the slums of London to back breaking labor in New South Wales, to being freed, ex-prisoner William Thornhill triumphs over every adversity.

But there is another story within this story, that of the natives of that region who are nomads, living on fishing and foraging and who are forced to leave the land where they were born by the white immigrants. This story is also told from the viewpoint of the protagonist, William and his wife Sal and children.

In the beginning, this family takes a' live and let live' approach and does well, until the tribe attacks and kills their neighbors and destroys their crops. There is a bloody and brutal confrontation in which many tribe members are killed and removed from the land.

William experiences a pyrrhic victory even though he becomes very rich after this encounter. One of his sons is estranged from him. But as with other emigration and immigration stories, this is also what happens to many immigrants, and it is not unusual to be changed by brutal experiences, moments of madness all ensuring one's own survival at any cost.

boring

I'm 17 and this book was an assignment but for most of it was dragging on too long for me

if you're a man of imagery go ahead otherwise there's better things to read

Powerful yet heartbreaking. An absolute must for every Australian

This is a powerful yet tragic tale and an absolute must-read for every Australian. Heartbreakingly informative about the colonisation/invasion of this land, both sides desperate for the other to move on. We recently saw the production on stage in Brisbane - again, a must-see if you have the chance. I also recommend watching Stan Grant's speech delivered in January 2016.