Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers and the author of 15 books. Her most famous book, The Secret River, has won national and international awards and been adapted as a play and TV miniseries.

Kate’s latest book, Unsettled, is a work of nonfiction where the author goes on a pilgrimage back through the places where her family stories happened.  And, as makes this journey and recounts these stories, she adds First Nations people into the same frame. It’s within this frame that the author poses thought provoking questions; the first of which being, “What does it mean to be on land taken from others?”.

The author asks this question with good reason as her family’s history in Australia stretches back five generations and she tells the reader that four of those generations, “were on the sharp edge of the moving blade that was colonisation.”

Kate’s family’s journey from Sydney to Myall Creek is separated into chapters that are set in different towns and locations along the route. The family’s first move was to a place now known as Wisemans Ferry. This spot was named after Kate’s great-great-great-grandfather, Solomon Wiseman, who came to Sydney as a convict and later established the ferry and went on to build the local hotel.  Kate writes that the land was fertile and the concept of ‘ownership’ was strong.

There are many many layers of stories in this book; there are historical ones, ones told to Kate by her mother as well as memories from her childhood and stories from her numerous research trips that were done to gather information for this book. The telling of these stories is done with such a gentle hand as they’re dotted with interactions and emotions and filled with beautiful phrases, expressions and descriptions.

But this is far from being just an extremely beautiful piece of writing as it’s filled with deep thoughts and hefty substance and it takes a skilled writer like Kate to be able to take the reader by the hand and guide them into a conversation about the actions and attitudes of the colonisers and the consequences for those who already lived here.

Throughout the book Kate looks at numerous contrasts in ways of thinking and behaving and she notes that the colonists saw the land as inhospitable while the Aboriginal people saw it as “anything but wild”.

She also writes about how Australia –  “a vast open land with not a boundary in sight (or mind)” – became allocated to white people as a way of them establishing control of the land beyond an established location. The ensuing “land grab” escalated the battle between new land holders and the Aboriginal people and led to “Country” becoming “Colony”.

Yes this book includes stories about the Stolen Generation and some horrific acts committed against Aboriginal people but I would add that these are measured accounts designed to provoke reflection.

Kate not only aims to educate the reader on some of the dark events of Australian history but she also weaves in incredibly interesting information about Indigenous language and culture and its links to the origins of names of locations, sites and landmarks.

Without doubt I found this book to be the most interesting and thought-provoking work I have read on the topic of colonisation. It drew me in, engaged me and made me marvel at the author’s poetic and poignant articulation of the questions and situations the book addresses and all done within the framework of brilliant storytelling.

I give this book 5 Stars, ten out of ten and a big thumbs up! 

Author: Kate Grenville 
Publisher: Black Inc Books  
ISBN: 9 781760 645649 
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