“A Room Made of Leaves” begins with a note from Kate Grenville in the guise of a transcriber and editor who found these pages which are supposedly the secret memoirs of Elizabeth Macarthur, a real Anglo-Australian merchant from the late 18th/early 19th century and wife to one of the most famous and wealthy entrepreneurs in New South Wales at that time. However, at the end of the book Grenville acknowledges “This book isn't history. At the same time it's not pure invention.” This playful ruse makes the novel an immersive fictional experience but it also adds to the sense of what went unsaid both in the historic documents Elizabeth left behind and concerning the circumstances that led this couple who came from humble origins to build a lucrative Australian wool industry. Grenville fictionally reimagines Elizabeth's journey from growing up among provincial Cornish farmers to her challenging marriage to her indomitable husband John to settling in the relative wildness of the New South Wales colony. It's a tale of self-invention, hidden passion and the canny resolve needed to outwit a patriarchal society in order to achieve real independence. Grenville creates a portrait of a woman with hidden veins of emotion while also atmospherically depicting the gritty reality of pioneer life in a foreign land.
The chapters which make up this novel are quite short in length which gives the text the punchy immediacy of diary entries. I enjoyed how this kept the novel skipping along at a good pace. It's terrifying how Elizabeth becomes entangled in such a nightmarish situation marrying a brutish husband and being forced to move across the world. Yet she's intelligent enough to know the real danger of stepping out of her role and falling into an even more perilous position. At one point during the long sea voyage to their new home John becomes very ill and she realises that if he dies she'll be even more vulnerable. I found it moving and relatable how she discovers the key is to time things right to allow for opportunities for certain freedoms within this restrictive society as well as chances to discover what she really wants in life. Crucially, Grenville frames this story within the context of colonization and that the land where Elizabeth and John found rich opportunity is also a place which was stolen from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. A mystery about what really happened during a crucial battle between the English and the native people gives a haunting quality to this intimate tale about how one shrewd woman might have triumphed over considerable obstacles to realise her full potential.
