A Room Made of Leaves

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A Room Made of Leaves

By: Kate Grenville

Narrated by: Valerie Bader

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About this listen

What if Elizabeth Macarthur – wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in early Sydney – had written a shockingly frank secret memoir?

In her introduction Kate Grenville tells, tongue firmly in cheek, of discovering a long-hidden box containing that memoir. What follows is a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented.

Grenville's Elizabeth Macarthur is a passionate woman managing her complicated life-marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her own heart and the search for power in a society that gave her none - with spirit, cunning and sly wit.

Her memoir reveals the dark underbelly of the polite world of Jane Austen. It explodes the stereotype of the women of the past - devoted and docile, accepting of their narrow choices. That was their public face - here's what one of them really thought.

At the heart of this book is one of the most toxic issues of our times – the seductive appeal of false stories. Beneath the surface of Elizabeth Macarthur's life and the violent colonial world she navigated are secrets and lies with the dangerous power to shape reality.

Kate GrenvilleValerie BaderBolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Fiction

Historical Fiction

Women's Voices

Marriage

Inspiring

Heartfelt

Fiction Historical Fiction Women's Voices Marriage Inspiring Heartfelt

Critic Reviews

"There is no doubt Grenville is one of our greatest writers." (The Sunday Mail)

"Kate Grenville is a literary alchemist, turning the leaden shadow of the historical Elizabeth Macarthur into a luminescent, golden woman for our times. Intelligent, compassionate, strategic and dead sexy, Grenville’s Macarthur is an unforgettable character who makes us question everything we thought we knew about our colonial past. A polished gem of a novel by a writer who is as brave as she is insightful. I simply loved it." (Clare Wright)

Most relevant

I listened to this book shortly after The Dickens Boy by Tom Keneally, and could compare and contrast the two approaches to historical characters based on limited material. Both books are superb and entertaining. There were more 'external events' in The Dickens Boy, whereas Kate Grenville lets us see events purely through the eyes of Elizabeth Macarthur. Any woman with the misfortune to have married John Macarthur would deserve our pity, but Elizabeth finds ways of living semi-independently with this obstreporous man, partly by striking up a relationship with Mr Dawes. And she learns to manipulate her husband, up to a point. Kate Grenville has told her story with great sensitivity and skill.
Reader Valerie Bader does a sterling job throughout.