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Gotland
Shy and idealistic, Esther Chatwin is Australia’s reluctant First Lady. She longs to return to the anonymity of her old life, but her husband’s sudden political success has turned the media spotlight on her. Esther’s only escape is to Gotland, the legendary island in the Baltic Sea that she loves. A special place, it’s also home to the enigmatic sculptor Sven, another idealist with a troubled past.
Even on the other side of the world, deeply private events become everyone’s business, and Esther must find a way to live with
the consequences.
Gotland is a moving and timely fable about what happens when reality confronts idealism, freedom is elusive and change a tantalising dream.
Even on the other side of the world, deeply private events become everyone’s business, and Esther must find a way to live with
the consequences.
Gotland is a moving and timely fable about what happens when reality confronts idealism, freedom is elusive and change a tantalising dream.
304 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2013
3 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Fiona Capp
10 books10 followersFiona Capp is the internationally published author of three works of non-fiction, including That Oceanic Feeling, a memoir about her love for the sea and surfing. She is also the author of four novels: NIGHT SURFING, LAST OF THE SANE DAYS and MUSK & BYRNE and GOTLAND published in JULY 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 21, 2017
Gotland, an island off Sweden, is the place that heroine Esther Chatwin escapes to, mentally and physically, in order to deal with her high-pressure life. Prone to panic attacks in her youth, Esther finds herself catapulted into the limelight after the death of a colleague results in her politician husband David becoming Leader of the Opposition weeks away from an election. This is a disruption in their lives that she was unprepared for and, coupled with the news that her sister is dying of cancer, Esther finds her composure starting to unravel. She accepts her sister's long-standing invitiation to join her and her friend Sven on Gotland. It is there that Esther must face up to the realities of her life and find some equilibrium.
The book alternates between Esther's experiences in Australia in the wake of David's political career and her September idyll on Gotland, which has become the one place she can hold onto to help stave off her rising fears about the impact on their lives of David's success. Capp varies her style of writing as the scene changes, with the Gotland chapters coming across as moody and pastoral, whereas the Australian chapters strike the reader as gritty, urban and rushed.
This is not a book I expected to like, but it is very good and very well-written. I found myself wanting Esther to find peace but Capp manages to preserve empathy for all of her main characters, even David, who could so easily have been made into the villain of the piece. A very readable, absorbing and gratifying book
The book alternates between Esther's experiences in Australia in the wake of David's political career and her September idyll on Gotland, which has become the one place she can hold onto to help stave off her rising fears about the impact on their lives of David's success. Capp varies her style of writing as the scene changes, with the Gotland chapters coming across as moody and pastoral, whereas the Australian chapters strike the reader as gritty, urban and rushed.
This is not a book I expected to like, but it is very good and very well-written. I found myself wanting Esther to find peace but Capp manages to preserve empathy for all of her main characters, even David, who could so easily have been made into the villain of the piece. A very readable, absorbing and gratifying book
July 19, 2013
This is an interesting book which weaves between 2010 and January 2013 as well as between Australia and Gotland, a Swedish Island situated in the Baltic Sea. It makes for a stunning setting and contrast to Melbourne and Canberra.
I could empathise with Esther who loved being a teacher particularly of young impressionable children but who is shy in social situations. Image the response when her husband after the death of his lifelong friend Gerald dies and David is suddenly thrust into the spotlight as his replacement in the political scene. Suddenly Esther and David and their daughter Kate’s private lives are no longer private.
When her sister Ros, who has cancer, invites Esther to stay with her on the island of Gotland Esther relishes the opportunity to be with her sister but also to look at where her life is heading and the changes that will be required of her. Part of her resents that this is not what she signed up for when she married David. But what choice does she have? Esther’s time in Gotland ends up being not what she expected either.
This poetically written novel raises a lot of questions about marriage and what one person may have to give up because of the choice of their spouse. Or what one should expect from their spouse. It had me thinking how I would react in a similar situation of being suddenly thrown into the public eye and the glare of politics through no choice of my own. Even though I didn’t agree with the way Esther handled things a lot of the time, my sympathies were firmly with her. A book designed to make you think.
I could empathise with Esther who loved being a teacher particularly of young impressionable children but who is shy in social situations. Image the response when her husband after the death of his lifelong friend Gerald dies and David is suddenly thrust into the spotlight as his replacement in the political scene. Suddenly Esther and David and their daughter Kate’s private lives are no longer private.
When her sister Ros, who has cancer, invites Esther to stay with her on the island of Gotland Esther relishes the opportunity to be with her sister but also to look at where her life is heading and the changes that will be required of her. Part of her resents that this is not what she signed up for when she married David. But what choice does she have? Esther’s time in Gotland ends up being not what she expected either.
This poetically written novel raises a lot of questions about marriage and what one person may have to give up because of the choice of their spouse. Or what one should expect from their spouse. It had me thinking how I would react in a similar situation of being suddenly thrown into the public eye and the glare of politics through no choice of my own. Even though I didn’t agree with the way Esther handled things a lot of the time, my sympathies were firmly with her. A book designed to make you think.
March 8, 2015
Excellent.
September 21, 2018
3 1/2 round up. Look for the clues throughout the book, to have a clearer understanding of her choices.
September 2, 2016
No, it’s not the most appealing title I’ve ever come across, but Gotland is a terrific book.
(Don’t you love it when you get a good run of books that you really like, one after the other?)
In this absorbing novel, Fiona Capp has tapped into one of the key issues of our time: privacy for public figures, and how the public’s insatiable appetite for information about them distorts the very values that we want them to have.
Gotland is Sweden’s largest island, and in this novel it’s the place that Esther Chatwin escapes to, when the pressure of being Australia’s First Lady becomes more than she can bear. Until her husband David became Prime Minister, Esther was a primary school teacher who loved her career. An introvert who was happy to let others do the talking, she was reserved with adults but confident and assured with her pupils, and for her, teaching Preps was very rewarding. But David’s sudden elevation to the top job meant that she had to give it up. I couldn’t help but think of Therese Rein having to give up her highly successful business to avoid a conflict of interest when her husband became PM. I couldn’t help but think of Hazel Hawke, a retiring personality who found public life rather difficult. Two very different women but both had no alternative but to alter their own identities in the service of their husbands’ ambitions.
But as we know, political wives and partners have to give up much more than the roles they formerly enjoyed. They have to give up their privacy.
To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/05/22/go...
(Don’t you love it when you get a good run of books that you really like, one after the other?)
In this absorbing novel, Fiona Capp has tapped into one of the key issues of our time: privacy for public figures, and how the public’s insatiable appetite for information about them distorts the very values that we want them to have.
Gotland is Sweden’s largest island, and in this novel it’s the place that Esther Chatwin escapes to, when the pressure of being Australia’s First Lady becomes more than she can bear. Until her husband David became Prime Minister, Esther was a primary school teacher who loved her career. An introvert who was happy to let others do the talking, she was reserved with adults but confident and assured with her pupils, and for her, teaching Preps was very rewarding. But David’s sudden elevation to the top job meant that she had to give it up. I couldn’t help but think of Therese Rein having to give up her highly successful business to avoid a conflict of interest when her husband became PM. I couldn’t help but think of Hazel Hawke, a retiring personality who found public life rather difficult. Two very different women but both had no alternative but to alter their own identities in the service of their husbands’ ambitions.
But as we know, political wives and partners have to give up much more than the roles they formerly enjoyed. They have to give up their privacy.
To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/05/22/go...
September 28, 2017
Tolstoy's 'every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way' seems to be the cause of Esther's fault lines that we hear so much about in the first part of the book. Once past this rather laboured point this is, as another reader said, absorbing. Totally. Loved it. Yes we all need our own Gotland to give quiet strength and peace when needed. Great stuff Fiona Capp.
September 9, 2025
Admittedly I mostly read this for the descriptions of my home island, and skipped the parts set in Australia. That being said, the prose of this book is so boring. It feels like the author is trying to emulate captivating prose without actually knowing how to write it, so she's just using the words she thinks will make a text fanciful. It's just a boring book.
December 11, 2013
A good story, but one where I found it hard to relate to the characters. They seemed to lack any real personality and seemed confusing vehicles in an interesting story about political life. The main character is a reluctant wife of the Australian Prime Minister. She feels emotionally and socially ill prepared and harbours some secrets that are not conducive to the "image" of the good wife. She finds solace on the Scandinavian Island of Gotland, where she discovers a more connected life that makes her feel more free, relaxed and apart from the political spotlight. It's a relatively short and easy read and satisfying enough. Not among my best books of 2013, but I'm glad I invested a few days to read what is another good debut by an Australian author.
November 5, 2013
Not sure about this one. It is a quick and easy read, but I somehow was not sure of its purpose by the time I finished it. The life of a prime minister's wife is so alien to almost everyone that it seems like a strange persona for the main character. And I wasn't sure why the writer chose this as it didn't really add much to the story and perhaps was a bit alienating. It just felt like there was a lot waiting to be said in the wings about marriage and freedom and relationships, but we get all caught up in the political side of the story. And why bring Gotland into it at all? Nevertheless it was clever writing; the author keeps a firm grip on her story and characters but I am still left wanting more/something else.
September 27, 2015
How very timely, I finished reading this book this weekend, the very weekend The Age ran a story about Turnbull's wife saying just because her husband's job has changed she doesn't see any need for hers to change and she won't be called Australia's First Lady. I enjoyed the writing more than I enjoyed the actual story, it had lovely moments of lyricism and beautifully observed descriptions of family relationships quite nuanced and credible. As a story though it wasn't exactly gripping nor suspenseful or engaging. But I'm glad I read it.
September 6, 2013
I loved this book and had the luxury of being able to read it straight through without stopping. What is the real story behind the political spin and botoxed sound bites of our nations leaders? it resonated with me on so many levels: relationships between sisters, midlife lust, the wonders of feisty daughters and the meaning that teaching gives to life. Lots of beautiful paragraphs that I wanted to copy out.
May 4, 2014
Is honesty the best policy? Well, it looks like that at the end of this insightful and interesting book but will the Prime Minister and his wife have the courage to do it , this book doesn't tell us but leaves it to us to guess and guess I will. Is it up to the first family to demolish the stereotype of how a family unit should look like or is it up to the rest of us to change the way we perceive the world as it is?
June 8, 2015
I adored this book.
It asks the question of what happens when the partner of an intensely private person runs for power in politics. How do you cope? What do you use as your safe place of retreat? Set both in Australia and on the Swedish island of Gotland it is the story of a marriage and how love and commitment can be what you make of it.
It asks the question of what happens when the partner of an intensely private person runs for power in politics. How do you cope? What do you use as your safe place of retreat? Set both in Australia and on the Swedish island of Gotland it is the story of a marriage and how love and commitment can be what you make of it.
October 19, 2015
A novel that hums, rather than sings. Exquisitely balanced issues of desire, tolerance, anonymity, identity and motherhood. Satisfying in its dedication to reality; Capp had options to make the story more dramatic, more perfect, and she rejected these.
September 29, 2015
I loved this book. I have lived in Melbourne and Canberra and now I want to visit Gotland! The writing is subtle and draws you in to Esters life and her choices. Great read.
July 20, 2014
I want to go to Gotland.
April 12, 2017
Set in Canberra, Melbourne and the island of Gotland this novel traces the story of a woman's life and her struggle as she comes to terms with her husband's political ambitions and her ultimate role as wife of the Australian Prime Minister. It captures the essence of the two Australian cities which I know well and although I have not visited Gotland it seems to also capture the bleak beauty of this isolated part of Europe. The characters are interesting and believable. My only quibble was with the conclusion which just didn't work.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews