Searching for the Secret River

by Kate Grenville

Searching for the Secret River is a memoir about the writing of Kate Grenville's international bestseller, The Secret River.

It tells the story of the research behind the novel - from the transcript of Grenville's ancestor's trial at the Old Bailey in 1805, to the information that contemporary historians are uncovering about what happened on the Australian frontier. It also takes the reader through the process of turning that research into living fiction - the false starts, dead ends and failures as well as the strokes of luck, flashes of inspiration and surprises.

It contains sections of personal memoir, the record of the research, and a journal of the evolution of the book from non-fiction to novel. It quotes sections of early drafts and compares them with the final version, and goes into some detail about technical issues such as point of view, voice and dialogue.

For anyone interested in the writing process - and in particular the writing of a historical novel - Searching for the Secret River provides a unique behind-the-scenes exploration.

The Secret River has proved to be a controversial book among Australian historians. They feel that fiction is an untrustworthy mechanism by which to understand the past. A novelist may alter, simplify or even distort the truth about history in ways the reader will not be aware of.

Kate Grenville has always had the same reservations about historical fiction. Even before The Secret River was completed, she was planning a book which would make transparent the process by which she'd adapted the historical record for the purposes of fiction, and her reasons for the decisions she made.

She says "The subject matter of The Secret River is so important, and so politically charged, I didn't want readers to be able to say oh, it's only a novel - she just made it all up. The events and characters in the novel are adapted from the historical record. These things really did happen on our frontier, even if at a slightly different time and in a different place. I wanted readers to be able to retrace the journey I took in coming to terms with what I found about our history, and to see how I chose to adapt it for a novel."

Twenty years of teaching Creative Writing in universities, and three books about the writing process, were the other impetus for Searching for The Secret River. "Writing is such an enrichment of life - whether or not it results in publication - that I wanted to leave a record of my own process, so that others might not have to re-invent the wheel completely," Grenville says. "Historical fiction has its particular challenges for the writer - I would have loved to read a book like this one while I was writing The Secret River. It would have made the process a little less laborious."

Searching for the Secret River has become a classic for book groups, students and writers looking for guidance.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Australia, Writing, Biography Memoir, Autobiography

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Kate Grenville is one of Australia's best-known authors. She's published eight books of fiction and four books about the writing process. Her best-known works are the international best-seller The Secret River, The Idea of Perfection, The Lieutenant and Lilian's Story (details about all Kate Grenville's books are elsewhere on this site). Her novels have won many awards both in Australia and the UK, several have been made into major feature films, and all have been translated into European and Asian languages.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading The Secret River earlier this year was a profoundly moving experience, as was seeing the superb theatrical adaptation of the novel produced by the Sydney Theatre Company*. Together, the novel and the play spoke to me spoke to me about the colonial experience in New South Wales in a way that all of my other reading on this subject has failed to do. It personalised the dilemmas faced by the new arrivals and the conflict between them and the indigenous people of the country. It made those dilemmas and that conflict real in an emotional, not just in an intellectual sense. That emotional impact has remained with me over the months, fed and revitalised by reading the other novels of what has become Grenville's trilogy about the colonial experience, The Lieutenant and, over the past few days, Sarah Thornhill.

Until I noticed that my GR friend Gaeta was reading this book, I didn't know it existed. How grateful I am to have come across it. The theme of the work is there in the title. Grenville, inspired by family stories about her ancestor Solomon Wiseman - whose name is immortalised in Sydney geography by the settlement of Wiseman's Ferry on the Hawkesbury River - decides to write a biography of the convict turned wealthy landowner. She researches his story in London and in Australia and spends five years writing and re-writing what becomes not a biography, but a novel, and not a novel about her ancestor, but a novel centred on a character inspired by him and about the cultural misunderstanding which contributed to the difficult relationship between white settlers in the colony and the local indigenous people.

Grenville's writing method - the research, the re-imagining, the writing, the revision - is interesting in and of itself and would be, I imagine, of particular interest to other writers. However, that's not what captivated me about this work. What moved me at times to tears, was the recognition and memory of shared experiences. When Grenville describes the Reconcilation Walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in May 2000, I was taken back to that day, because I was one of the 300,000 people who participated. When Grenville described standing next to the Thames realising that this was the place where Solomon Wiseman had been arrested, I remembered touching a headstone in a cemetery in a churchyard in Cornwall, knowing that this was where generations of my ancestors were buried. When Grenville described looking at Sydney Harbour, imagining what it was like when the ship on which Wiseman arrived in the colony, I remembered having done exactly the same thing, as I imagined the arrival of my ancestors. While I found her journey as a novelist very interesting, it was her struggle to find meaning, connection and belonging with which I most identified.

This is quick to read and highly recommended to anyone who loves The Secret River, who is interested in the process of researching and writing a novel or who has tried to make sense of family history. Thank you, Gaeta, for leading me to it.

*Excerpts from the play and interviews with playwright Andrew Bovell, director Neil Armfield and cast member Ursula Yovich can be seen here.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed The Secret River, and rated it five stars, so was intrigued by this book which covers the background and process of how it was researched and written. And I wasn't disappointed. I found this to be really fascinating. In part one, the reader follows Kate Grenville as she initially begins researching her convict ancestor and his transportation to Australia, then realises that his claiming of land on the Hawkesbury River must have put him in conflict with the Aboriginal inhabitants of the area. The dark history she discovers makes for uncomfortable but important reading.

Parts two and three of the book are also interesting, providing insights into the process of writing The Secret River and how it evolved. It is particularly interesting to see the many sources from which Grenville drew inspiration, including minor details and phrases which contribute to the authentic sound and atmosphere of the novel.

This book is likely to be of interest to aspiring authors and family history researchers, or those who enjoyed The Secret River.

[Rosemary Atwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rewarding read, especially for the writer and/or researcher. 'Searching for The Secret River' documents Kate Grenville's journey of discovering her great-great-great grandfather and of the satisfactions and frustrations of the writing process, as she grapples with the ways in which truth and fiction both conspire and inspire when bringing a text to life.
Although the book isn't exactly a memoir or a writing guide, it fits both genres equally well.

[Hariklia Heristanidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am searching for my own way to tell the story of my grandparents, so reading about Kate Grenville's search for her great great great grandfather and of how to tell his story, obviously resonated with me. Most of us will know of her award-winning book "The Secret River". It was made into an excellent two-part mini-series and has also been adapted for the stage. This book tells the tale of how that book came into being.
It follows the trajectory of the author's interest in her forebearer, through to research and struggles with how best to tell the story of what happened. She considers memoir, hybrid forms of writing etc before realising that it's not just her ancestor's story she wants (or needs) to tell, but the wider story of all colonialists and their relationship to the indigenous people they displaced, which mirrors their relationship to the land: this land.
This is a thoroughly Australian story, that Kate Grenville tells from a personal viewpoint. It is beautifully written and totally absorbing - whether you're writing your own book or not. I loved it and am grateful that she has shared her struggles and insights.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew it! After grinding through The Secret River, the impression I got from it was that it was that 1) Grenville put a crap load of research into the book, and 2) it was a personal story of sorts, and Searching for the Secret River confirms this. To my mind, Grenville was too involved with the story to really be objective with it. She talks about having to stop thinking of the main character in terms of who he was in real life (he's a thinly disguised version of her own ancestor), and start looking at him with more of an author's eye, but given the main character's lack of characterisation, I don't think she was very successful with that. Maybe it was only a subconscious decision, but still, the main character was extremely dull, like she didn't want to paint him as one way or the other because in some sense she would still be making up a personality for someone real and connected to her, and I can understand that it would be a tricky thing to commit to.

I'm starting to think Kate Grenville just isn't my cup of tea, though. Like the The Secret River, Searching for the Secret River had the same lack of ... urgency, I guess? Compelling-ness? That factor that makes you think "yes, I want to know where this is all going and what happens next". They're not bad, just boring. Grenville openly admits that her books, or at least some of them, have little plot. As far as I'm concerned, without that plot there's nothing else that emerges instead to grab the reader's attention. Not style or interesting writing, not character motivations, or in this case, her motivations. It just plods along with no surprises, like an automaton, or a bland rube goldberg machine.
I'll give her another chance with the sequel to The Secret River, but needless to say my hopes aren't high.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having devoured The Secret River, I felt lucky to have this to hand. I am always fascinated by other people’s writing processes, and there were a number of things I really enjoyed about this book. I felt a strong kinship with Kate’s search among archives for pieces of information that would help her put together her story, having just done something similar for Shallow Breath. I thought she did pretty well in not getting the book bogged in details that were probably fascinating to her but perhaps not so much to an outsider – there were only a couple of times I felt I was getting a bit lost in facts and figures.

I really valued the importance Kate placed on visiting the places she was writing about, where possible, to get a feel for them, to try to become a part of the story, and flesh out the small details that would make the book interesting and memorable. I loved envisaging Kate climbing down to stand next to the Thames, and pocketing a bit of old roof tile!

What I also liked very much was how Kate outlines her struggles to find the way to tell this story – the false starts, the realisations, the certainties becoming uncertainties. I think it’s a wonderful thing for all writers to see that a fantastic book comes about through hard work, through being prepared to question your own decisions and change your mind, and that it is not just an effortless slipstream from mind to paper for even the most talented of novelists.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kate Grenville is one of my favourite writers and I was bitterly disappointed when her novel The Secret River was passed over by the Miles Franklin judges. It was a brave and beautiful book, exploring the mutual incomprehension and inevitable conflict that occurred when early Australian settlers encountered the indigenous people. It was Grenville’s first venture into historical fiction, and coming as it did in the middle of the so-called History Wars, it was criticised for failing to be ‘true’ history. Searching for the Secret River was Grenville’s response to those critics.
See the rest at http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...

[Zoë Marriott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating - I only wish there had been more technical, nitty-gritty detail.

[Meg Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed the psychogeographic elements of this one and thought it was an interesting (and valuable) insight into the writing process of Kate Grenville. I continue to be horrified by the normalisation of segregation in Australia - Grenville seems to just accept the circumstance of her never having spoken to an Aboriginal person. Yikes.

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a passage in Kate Grenville's historic novel 'The Secret River' that perfectly encapsulates the avarice that took over Australia's emancipated convicts. In it, the protagonist gazes over a piece of coveted Aboriginal land:

He took off his hat with an impulse to feel the air around his head. His own air! That tree, its powdery bark flaking around the trunk: his! That tussock of grass, each coarse strand haloed by the sunlight: his own!

What is surprising, on reading this 'making of' book, is that the protagonist is based on Grenville's own ancestor, Solomon Wiseman, after whom the Sydney hamlet of Wisemans Ferry is named.

Grenville originally intended 'The Secret River' to be a work of non-fiction, and this book works perfectly as just that. It's also a generous and honest insight into her writing process. A refreshing admission is that - unlike many white "experts" - she does not claim to understand the Aboriginal culture that she writes about. Though the book is a dry telling of events, Grenville includes at the end a flash of the brilliant poetry that makes 'The Secret River' so outstanding.

Wisemans Ferry, a crossing of Sydney's Hawkesbury River, still captivates visitors and even invokes avarice within them. My in-laws, who emigrated to Australia from India nearly 40 years ago, have often talked of the place, noting - without irony - that when they visited, "we had the place all to ourselves".

On a scorching summer's day, I cycled the 42km in from the nearest train station. The temperature hit 47C. In the shimmering heat, the place was stunningly beautiful. But having read Grenville's whole 'Secret River' triology and this 'making of' book, I could only liken it to journeying into the heart of darkness.

'The Secret River' refers to the secret river of Aboriginal blood that flows throughout Australia's history.

[Angela Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful and encouraging book about the journey towards a novel. It took Kate Grenville five years to write The Secret River: Searching for The Secret River describes what happened in those five years. The Secret River wasn't going to be a novel at all in the beginning, but a memoir. But slowly things begin to change and evolve - always through her determination to stay with it and to discover. Even when she realises, 'With a sinking heart - how can I do this? - that I would have to create a whole society on the riverside.' It's one thing to create one or two or three or even several characters. It's quite another to create a whole society, and particularly a society which the writer knows little or nothing of, yet novels create whole worlds so they need whole societies even if they're not altogether described.

Grenville's memoir of the writing of The Secret River is so honest, so beautifully-written and so full of the recognitions and the difficulties, the solutions and the problems that are endemic to the writing of a novel - 'The solution to every problem creates another' - that, apart from being an intriguing account of how a writer makes a piece of work, it is a gloriously reassuring piece of work for those of us who also write. Eventually, each search will yield up its treasure.

[Nadia King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Searching for the Secret River was a fascinating read detailing Kate Grenville's writing process and journey to write her stunning book, The Secret River.

I could not put this one down and was intrigued by her connections to the characters (fictional or otherwise). If you're interested in seeing how a writer of historical fiction works, I highly recommend this one.

[Pauleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book some time ago and absolutely loved reading about the process behind the novel.

I was much amused, when she talks about researching her ancestor and she declares she's not one of those family historians....um, yes you are!

[Jiajia Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is an quite honest memoire of Grenville's writing process of her MASTERPIECE The Secret River. The memorandum reveals when and how she gets the inspiration and motivation of writing such a book, and the detailed efforts of her research. It helps people to get a better understanding of her standpoint of writing The Secret River. basically, after reading the memoire, I would agree that TSR is a whitewashing novel; yet it also demonstrates her respect for the aboriginal people and their wisdom by not getting into their minds, despite this causes problems concerning a more appropriate representation of the Indigenous people.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

We share two journeys with Kate Grenville in this book: her growing awareness of the impact of “settlement” on the first peoples and the creative process of writing a novel. Both are very interesting and different journeys.

The atrocities committed, the frontier wars, the destruction of culture. All are hidden in the family stories of Grenville’s ancestors’ settlement. As she researches her ancestor, Wiseman, she becomes increasingly aware of what would have and did take place,

The book shifts to what is involved in writing after all her research. This was eye opening to me. Such a sustained and involved process. It seems exhausting

[Renuga · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a research done by author for a novel "The Secret River" book. This book explains about how the novel was initiated from beginning and how does she have done research and gathering the information about her ancestors Solomon Wiseman which was 200 years back. She take almost 5 years to complete her novel. All the way, author have been facing with character development and the way she want to convey all the message she had gathered. Some of story had to be ignored to be in objective or the purpose of the novel. From memoir its become a novel. Its a good read, if we want to have some idea for writing. There is absolutely many thing a writer is facing and a lot of imagination.

[Michael Burge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This frank account of what it takes to put together a piece of historical fiction should be essential reading for young people intent on becoming authors.

This is the stuff they don't/can't teach in high school English courses, about life experience, passion, using what comes to hand and watching for the form of your work to emerge.

The subplot of this story-within-a-story is Grenville's awakening to the Frontier Wars, which is a journey many Australians went over the same period she describes.

A gift to writers and those who love and respect the writing process.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read The Secret River I have to admit. But I stumbled across this book at my university bookshop and bought it purely because the blurb on the back sounded interesting. I'm so glad I did, because I couldn't put it down! Searching for the Secret River touches on so many things I've been thinking about recently, it was definitely the right book at the right time. Now I need to go and find a copy of The Secret River to read!

[Anna Ciddor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It's all about Kate researching her great great great grandfather's story and turning it into a novel - much like I have done myself. So much resonated with my own problems, resolutions and writing.

[Mo Linton · Rating 4 out of 5]

had read the Secret River and been riveted by it and so absorbing and thrilling. now read the accompanying book about Kate Grenville's research into her family history and australian history to enable her to write the Secret River. this is really good and an enjoyable read

[Maha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a good overview of the research and review process any writer worth their salt must go through during a creative project. I particularly found this an enjoyable read shortly after finishing ‘The Secret River’, which this book pertains to.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a great look into the process of writing a novel.

[Merrilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic account of the research that went into The Secret River. Well worth it as a follow up after finishing the novel.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written memoir.

[Megan Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a writing friend and I found it to be a fascinating insight into Grenville’s writing process. I’ve borrowed The Secret River to read now.

[Carley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Liz Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about the process of writing a novel, family history and convict settlers in Australia. She writes exceedingly well.

[Shannon]

Started losing interest prior to but def lost me around pg 123 of 230.

[Frederike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting if you are inerested in the writing process, and particularly if you have just read the novel she talks about

[Jack Pearce · Rating 4 out of 5]

My motivation for reading this book was selfish: I wanted to improve my writing skills.
Kate Grenville delivered the goods!
The book is a masterclass of educative joy.