This is part of my Summer Reads series where I’ll be reviewing a series of “not just cookbooks”.
This was actually not going to be my Summer Reads pick this week – in fact, a week ago when I was planning content for the next few weeks, I hadn’t even heard of this book. But then it was recommended by a friend (it just came out in paperback), I got it on the library app that same day, started reading it and couldn’t stop.
You know when you are reading a book and you can’t wait to get back to it? The kind of book you read in one plane, car or train journey in one sitting. The kind of book you can’t stop thinking about? Yeah, this is THAT kind of book.
From the publisher:
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.
Compelling, devastating, tragic. I’m still thinking about these women’s stories, days after I finished the book. Growing up in Australia you might imagine that we learned more than we did about the penal colonies and the treatment of Aboriginals (especially children) by the colonists. But honestly, this book taught me more in a couple of days’ reading than I ever remember from school. Yes, it’s fiction but it’s exceptionally meticulously researched historical fiction that really brings the period alive through the three women’s very different experiences.
For starters, my memory of learning about the convicts was that the majority of those who were sentenced to transportation were men. Not so and the picture the book paints of the life endured by women convicts before during and after transportation is pretty grim. I don’t imagine we learned a lot about that in a girl’s Catholic school…
Secondly, though I have vague recollections of learning (a tiny bit) about residential schools where the Aboriginal children were sent to become “civilised”, I’m not sure it was at school I learned that. It just so happens that I’m working my way through a course right now on Indigenous Canada and last week’s lessons dealt with the Canadian residential schools. Add to that that fact that in recent weeks here in Canada, thousands of unmarked graves have been uncovered on the sites of former residential schools and the storyline involving eight year old Mathinna was particularly relevant to my own learning now. Hers is the only storyline that feels a little “loose” at the end – I found myself wanting more about her fate. Or maybe I wanted a better fate for her?
This is a heartbreaking and hopeful read at the same time. The way the storylines and the women’s lives intersect is masterful and beautiful. That these women with seemingly nothing in common end up intertwined in each other’s lives speaks to the power of tenacity and of connection. And strength of character. Despite all odds. A must read.
Buy The Exiles on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store geographically closest to you). Or, for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.
Please note: This post contains affiliate links. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links from The Book Depository. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!
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MY BOOK! In the French kitchen with kids is out now! Click here for details and how to order!
