Queen Anne Books

Kate Grenville, one of Australia’s most popular and respected literary authors, has written another beautiful and fascinating novel. Her previous book, The Secret River, was on my Top Ten books of the year when it came out. Like that book, The Lieutenant focuses on an early moment in the history of Australia. Daniel Rooke is an astronomer with the first voyage of convicts to be taken to New South Wales. He is a commissioned officer but spends his time away from the group as much as possible, looking for comets and trying to make a life as anything other than a prison warden. The center of his story is his encounters with the Aborigines and his attempt to learn their language. Grenville’s beautiful writing makes this book come alive. Rooke’s experience, and his innocence, is so well-described that I wanted to be him as he tries to steep native leaves for a sort of tea and understand the ways of friendship in a completely unfamiliar people. He flirts with being unrealistic, but Grenville manages to justify his different sensibility. She allowed me to fantasize about what I could have been like if I was there (without having to admit that I might have been a slave-owner and bigot like so many were). Yet again, she has made me search for cheap tickets to Australia. If only a time machine was an affordable option. ~Lillian