Salt Creek

by Lucy Treloar

1855. Failed entrepreneur Stanton Finch moves his family from Adelaide to the remote Coorong area of Southern Australia, in pursuit of his dream to become a farmer.

Housed in a driftwood cabin, they try to make the best of their situation. The children roam the beautiful landscape of Salt Creek; visitors are rare but warmly welcomed; a local Indigenous boy becomes almost part of the family. Yet there are daily hardships, and tensions with the Ngarrindjeri people they have displaced; disaster never seems far away.

With Mrs Finch struggling to cope, Hester, their perceptive eldest daughter, willingly takes on more responsibility. But as Hester’s sense of duty grows, so does a yearning to escape Salt Creek and make a new life of her own …

Lucy Treloar was born in Malaysia and educated in Melbourne, England, and Sweden. Awards for her writing include the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Salt Creek is her first novel.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Australia, Fiction, Historical, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

416 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2015

About the author

Lucy Treloar was born in Malaysia and educated in Melbourne, England and Sweden. A graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT, Lucy is a writer and editor and has plied her trades both in Australia and in Cambodia, where she lived for a number of years.

Her short fiction has appeared in Sleepers, Overland, Seizure, and Best Australian Stories 2013 and her non fiction in The Age, Meanjin, Womankind and elsewhere. She won
the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific), the WAUM award, and has also been awarded an Asialink Fellowship to Cambodia and a Varuna Publishers' Fellowship.

Lucy’s debut novel, Salt Creek,was published by Picador (Pan Macmillan) in August 2015 and the UK, USA, CAN and Europe in 2017. It won the Matt Richell ABIA award for best new writer, the Dobbie Award for best debut, the Indie Award for best debut, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and the Readings Prize for best new writer.

Wolfe Island (Sept 2019) is her second novel.

Reviews

[Debbie W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why I chose to read this book:
1. GR friend, Lisa (NY)'s succinct review sold me;
2. I love me a good story set in Australia; and,
3. April 2024 is my "Aqueous Titles" Month.

Praises:
1. not plot-driven, but everything that happens is plausible, like real life; a slow meandering journey;
2. occurring during the 19th century, one can sense the desolation and harshness of the South Australian environment through the characters. It's a story about relationships and choices made through a sense of duty and of love. It's about frustration, despair, betrayal, and forgiveness; and,
3. author Lucy Treloar's writing style is so authentic in regards to the 19th century characters and their actions.

Niggles:
None!

Overall Thoughts:
It's so difficult to write a persuasive review for a book that I savored while it swept me away. Perhaps other 5-star reviews will sway you to read it.
If you prefer character-driven historical fiction, then please read this book!

[Amanda Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar is a beautifully written novel that almost reads like a song. Treloar superbly intertwines fictional events with factual events set in the 1850's in the rugged and harsh coastal environment of Salt Creek in The Coorong of South Australia.

The story is told from the viewpoint of the extremely likeable Hester (Hetty) Finch. In 1855 Hester Finch is 15 and her family are living a comfortable life in Adelaide, they have a lovely house and many friends. Her Grandmama and Grandpapa have moved over from England to be closer to their grandchildren. Life is good or so Hester thinks.

That is until Hester's father Stanton Finch's problems become the family's problems due to his dreadful business decisions. He is always looking for the latest business venture, to make up for the previous business schemes that have failed, he is getting further and further into debt.

Stanton Finch (Papa) makes the decision to move his family to the desolate Salt Creek in The Coorong. His plan is that he and his eldest sons will tame the land for farming and build a grand home for his wife. Hester's mama had been melancholy for sometime due to reasons that will become clear. Papa believes or (wants to believe) that this move would make his wife happy again, and of course be able to pay his debts.

The brutal travel from Adelaide to Salt Creek takes two days by horse and cart and then another three days by dray. On their travels they come across some women of the Aboriginal Ngarrindjeri tribe. The Finchs and the Aboriginals look upon each other as curiosities, nothing more and nothing less. To Hester this is confirmation that they are indeed now far from civilisation. Papa had allayed any fear they may have had about the Aboriginals by reminding the family about the wreck of "The Maria" (a true documented event), and that the blacks understood justice. Not much imagination is needed to understand what he means. The saying that comes to mind is "we fear what we do not understand."

When they arrive at Salt Creek, the word isolated is an understatement. Papa and his sons have already been out several times to build a "temporary home" which is nothing more than a stable. As soon as they have settled in, Hester's mama becomes even worse and is now severely depressed. Hester is the eldest daughter so it is up to her to take on the role of mother which entails everything from cooking, sewing, washing and homeschooling the younger children.
Papa believes naively that he and his family can live off the land quite happily with their Aboriginal neighbours. Instead, he and his sons working the land and their farming is causing irreparable damage to the environment, the people and animals that have lived off this land for thousands of years. Stanton Finch has started a chain of events that will cause devastation to not only his family but also to the Ngarrindjeri people.

As the novel moves along at a beautiful pace, we learn more about the Finchs and their neighbours the Ngarrindjeri tribe. The author introduces us to an Aboriginal boy named Tully, who is able to speak English and is welcomed into the Finch's home. Tully learns much from the Finchs and is homeschooled with the Finch's younger children.

Tully begins to work on the farm and eventually moves in with Finchs. He becomes the interpreter between the Whites and the Blacks. Whilst being homeschooled , he is also being taught the bible, which confuses him because of being brought up with all of the Dreamtime stories. He doesn't understand why the bible has so few stories or songs. What is this place called Hell? Why does Papa Finch believe all of Tully's people are going there unless they learn and believe in "The Good Book"?

The more Tully learns the more confused he becomes about everything he has ever known, whether it is the clothes worn by the women on a very hot day or the fences that were built to surround animals. Tully is torn between the Aboriginal way and the white way.

It is through Tully that Hester and the younger siblings learn of the Aboriginal ways which in turn, we the reader also learn so much. As an Aboriginal woman from a different tribe, I also learnt much about the Ngarrindjeri Tribe's beliefs and of their amazing skills also of their challenges.


Lucy Treloar certainly did her homework, as I was reading the book I would Google and check out the stories to see if they were factual. Everything from Chinese being called Celestials to the Whaling Station and of course the infamous story of the Traveller's Rest.

The character of Tully is an absolute delight and he will go down as one of my favourite characters in Literature of all time. He will stay in my heart forever.
As an Aboriginal Australian, I do wonder if we had more people like Hester and Tully back in the 1800's we may not have had such a horrifically violent past.

As I was nearing the end of the novel I became aware that I was reading it a lot slower, trying to savour every last word. This book is not for or against the whites or the aboriginals, it is a book of understanding each other and our cultures.

Anyone wanting to know about Australia or just in general wants to read an unforgettable book should get their hands on this. An absolutely breathtaking novel!


Incredibly, this is Lucy Treloar's debut published novel, I recommend remembering her name. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

An easy 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Many thanks to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan, and Lucy Treloar for providing me with a copy of Salt Creek in return for a fair and honest Review.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is set 1855 and takes place in Salt Creek on the Coorong of South Australia. The Finch family is struggling to get through each day as their family business is in financial trouble. Neither Mr or Mrs Finch is coping and it seems that fifteen year old Hester (Hetty) is having to take on more than she should for a fifteen year old.

This story is narrated by Hester Finch, who gives us the reader a real understanding of just how hard it was for her and her family. Really emotional and touching indeed.

Salt Creek is a real gem of a book in my opinion and one that I didn't want to end. A really beautifully written story which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND. With thanks to Netgalley and publishers for my copy to read and review.

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 5 out of 5]

5★
“They moved across our land, certain and complete, not sparing us a glance unless there was a pressing need to converse.”

The Ngarrindjeri people seem surprisingly unperturbed by the newcomers on their land. South Australia has often enjoyed bragging rights about being the first Australian colony settled by free settlers rather than by convicts, but I’m not sure the local indigenous people were any happier about it.

I read this book several years ago and loved it. Father Finch (a dreamer and schemer) drags mother Finch (from a well-to-do English family) and children off to a dry farm he’s bought off the beaten track along the coast between Adelaide and Mount Gambier. They’ve already lost a couple of little ones, and where he’s taken them doesn’t augur well for the rest of the family. The several survivors range from a baby girl to late teen-aged sons.

The house is a ramshackle, leaking structure pieced together from flotsam and driftwood collected from the peninsula which runs between their lagoon and the Great Australian Bight. Plenty of shipwrecks keep them supplied.

“It was curious to walk through the house and know that so much of it had once been afloat, and when the house sighed and shifted in the cold of the night, it was easy to imagine that we were at sea ourselves, that whales and shark fish were passing beneath us with a lazy roll of their backs along the belly of the house, and on a windy night that sails above were catching the driven air and we were slicking through water, and on a still night that we were anchored in the limitless sea to stop us foundering on the rocks.”

This reminds me of the American wagon-train pioneers who believed so strongly in Manifest Destiny – their right to push west and take over the land. The acknowledgment of the local Ngarrindjeri people is similar – they come and go, so they don’t actually live here and don’t own anything. Notice their light footprint:

“We were accustomed to blacks whose clothes and cloaks were made of rushes and seaweed and skins, and who were ornamented in shells and feathers and weaponed with wood and stone – things so much part of the land in colour and texture and movement that they might have fallen on the people and which stayed there so lightly that they might fall again.”

Finch says it’s fine for them to come and go on his land, and he even fences off a couple of soaks (waterholes) to stop his livestock from fouling the water. He adopts a half-caste lad, Tull, who surprises them all with his aptitude for formal education.

But when push comes to shove, as it does during a drought, he pulls the fencing down and says it will just show the indigenous people it’s time to move on.

The family are pretty much slaves to the father’s changing enterprises: cattle, cheese-making, wool, lambs. He continues to spin excuses for failures and borrow heavily. There is tragedy, murder, betrayal, and brutality.

In spite of her increasing discontent and desperate desire to leave, Hester finds beauty:

“. . . sometimes it seemed that every grass head, every insect claw, every tree root, every fleck of slobber about the bullocks’ mouths had been carved by miraculous chisel.”

There is also tender love and beautiful, timeless writing. I can’t resist sharing Hester’s description of her mother’s wedding dress (no, it’s not a spoiler):

“. . . I shook out the rustling folds of cream silk. Heavy wings of skirt and underskirt fell away from a whalebone bodice; it was trimmed in lace and satin ribbon and had mother-of-pearl buttons up its long wrists and up its back. It seems to gather all the light of the dining room into it and send out some light of its own. It was an uneasy sort of garment, made from things of land and sea.”

This was shortlisted for several literary awards, including the Miles Franklin, and I could see it becoming a classic. It’s certainly a favourite of mine.

There’s a good interview with the author here:
https://www.betterreading.com.au/news...

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1855 Stanton Finch decides to leave his failed businesses and farm behind him and move his family from a genteel existence in Adelaide to an isolated property on the Coorong. He is sure that a fresh start farming cattle is all he needs to get his feet back on the ground. When his wife and children first see the property they are appalled, not just by the isolation of where they are expected to live but the ramshackle house Stanton has built for them from washed up timbers. However, doing their best to be good pioneers they grit their teeth and try to build a new life on the land. Unfortunately Stanton is not a good farmer and an even worse business man. He soon borrows beyond his means and has no idea about managing the land which soon becomes run down. The local Aboriginals, the Ngarrindjeri, complain to him about the damage the cattle are doing to the land and particularly to the soaks they need for fresh water. Initially, Mr Finch fences off soaks for the Aboriginals use but once drought strikes he takes the fences down and tells them they need to move on. However he believes that the Aboriginals can be 'civilised' and takes on the project of educating and training a young half-caste Aboriginal boy called Tully, who soon becomes part of the family and an interpreter for his own people.

The novel follows the family through a downward spiral in their fortunes as their existence becomes more and more difficult. Hester, the oldest daughter is the narrator, recounting the events of those years from her current home. She helps with the chores and cooking and teaching Tully and the younger children. There are many happy times as the family makes its own fun and she comes to appreciate the beauty of Coorong especially after she meets Charles, a young surveyor travelling through the area with his father.

I really loved this book. As well as telling Hester's journey, it documents the problems naive Europeans had about farming in Australian and their complete disregard of the wisdom of the local Aboriginals who could have told them much about how to look after the land. Lucy Treloar has done her research well in detailing the customs and practices of the Ngarrindjeri and in describing their fate as a result of the incursion of Europeans uninvited into their lands. She also writes beautifully of the Coorong and captures the feel of it wonderfully. Highly recommended to those with an interest in early Australian history.

[Jülie ☼♄  · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

What a beautiful credible story. I didn't want it to finish, I kept holding on to the thin threads of hope that bound this story together and held me captive to the very last page.
I even searched the acknowledgments and the author's bio, in an attempt to find out more, something to hang onto and draw it out just a little bit longer. So reluctant was I to leave it, it almost felt like a betrayal, like I was somehow letting it down by turning the last page and closing the book...as though it couldn't possibly be finished, that there ought to be more.

I would love to see another book following on from this one telling the story of what became of Hester (Hettie) Finch and her siblings, and of course Tully....of their futures'.
I already miss them and fret for their wellbeing.

Based around some real events in the author's family history and coloured with the addition of some fictitious people and incidents, this story comes to life to reveal a very credible look into what life might have been like at that time, for early settlers to this country ...

The story takes place from 1855, in a remote place called Salt Creek on an uncultivated stretch of land which has no obvious grazing or farming qualities, and which embraces the peninsula in the rugged coastal region of the Corrong in South Australia.
Mr. Finch has brought his wife and family here to make a new start after failing in successive business ventures in his efforts to make his fortune and prove his own worth...they have seriously fallen from grace and such is Mr. Finch's pride that he would rather put his family through this hardship than accept the offer of help from his children's grandparents...his in-laws.
They have slowly traversed the rugged distances from their comfortable and well bred town life, to this remote and lonely place, with their tedious mode of transport being bullock and dray and their house, finally revealing itself to be a hastily built shack barely big enough to accommodate them all.
None of them wanted to move from their home, least of all Mrs. Finch who's elderly parents had moved to town just to be close to them, and who's offers of financial assistance were an insult to Mr. Finch's sensitivities. So by the time of their arrival at Salt Creek, it would seem that Mrs. Finch's spirit had completely broken.

Their first encounters with the resident Aboriginal Ngarrindjeri tribe, who's land it has always been, was at first tentative and cautious then over time becoming a bit more tolerant of each other, though never fully relaxed as they grapple to understand one another's cultural idiosyncrasies and questionable priorities.
Mr. Finch genuinely believing he is being altruistic towards the Aboriginal people by sharing what he believes to be his own...within the confines of his fences. And especially in his generosity towards a particular Aboriginal youth named Tully, whom he has taken under his wing, encouraging his family to do likewise.

I always thought, throughout the story, that there was more to Mr. Finch and Tully's story...nothing weird...but I just felt that something more would be revealed in time, but it never did.

The story throws a convincing light on showing just how difficult and complex were the conditions for creating a relationship between these two seemingly polarised cultures during the time of the early settlers of white men, how, because of their vast cultural differences, they were so understandably perplexed with each other.
(Oh dear...such reckless and feckless, and clumsy beginnings.)

I was doubly fascinated by this book because my own family history has early settlers in Victoria and on the NSW border in the mid 1800's and onwards. I have unearthed some stories (in their own words) of their day to day lives during those times, and their relationships with local Aborigines. Thankfully, though they are tales of struggle and hardship, there was also much happiness and gratitude.

Now for my *gush* moment...
This is a book I will keep among my favourites and an author I will keep a lookout for.
Thank you Lucy Treloar for this truly wonderful story, it has been a delight to read your lovely and thought provoking word artistry, so beautifully described ...and amazing to believe that it is your debut novel! I very much look forward to reading more of your work in the near and distant future.

Oh, and I must mention the gorgeous cover! So rarely we find a book which has given as much thought to its outer presentation as to do credit to its inner presentation.
This lovely cover is so relevant to the story it is deserving of its own 5 star rating!
I love this book!

Many thanks also, to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Australia for this copy which has been my pleasure to read and review.

Highly recommended reading 5★s

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Salt Creek on the Coorong of South Australia was the destination of the Finch family in 1855 – fallen on hard times with their business in Adelaide, Mr Finch and his wife brought their entire family to the ramshackle and isolated property of Salt Creek, thinking to make their fortune and restore their good name. But Mr Finch and his grand ideas continued to fail, leaving him continually deeper in debt…

Fifteen year old Hester Finch found the burden of caring for the family falling on her shoulders; her mother was often melancholic which meant she spent time in her room and staring into space. Mr Finch wouldn’t accept charity from Grandmama and Grandpapa who were left in Adelaide – he also wouldn’t let them visit; or let his family visit them. A proud man he was, but not a sensible one. As they saw very few people in the area they were living, the children were lonely; Mrs Finch bereft…

The Ngarrindjeri people lived in and around the local lands and young Tully befriended the Finch family. Fred, younger than Hester, looked up to Tull and they became fast friends with Tull eventually joining the children in the school room to be taught by Hester’s mother and Hester herself. When tragedy befell the family it began a chain of events that would see disaster rip them apart; the Ngarrindjeri people lose their livelihoods and a realization that nothing would ever be as it was…

Salt Creek by Aussie author Lucy Treloar is a profound and deeply moving novel of very early Australia and the trials and tribulations of the early settlers. Narrated by Hester Finch throughout, she looks back and tells the story of her life and the life of her family; the heartache and sadness, hope and beauty of those early days – interspersed with descriptions of the stark and beautiful region they called home; as did the local Aboriginal people whose lives were torn asunder by the arrival of the white people. Written in a quiet yet consequential manner, Salt Creek kept me in its grip all the way to the end. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salt Creek is one of the very best works of historical fiction I’ve read. All the harder, then, to believe that it’s Lucy Treloar’s debut novel. Since its initial release in Australia in 2015, it has gone on to be shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction and the Miles Franklin Award for Australian novels. We have Claire McAlpine of the blog Word by Word to thank for helping this book find a publisher in the UK. I can particularly recommend it to fans of The Essex Serpent and English Passengers, and there are also resonances with Rebecca Winterer’s Australia-set The Singing Ship.

Hester Finch is looking back from the 1870s – when she is a widowed teacher settled in England – to the eight ill-fated years her family spent at Salt Creek, a small (fictional) outpost in South Australia, in the 1850s–60s. Her luckless father tried whaling in Adelaide before turning to cheese-making as his next far-fetched money-making venture. From Quaker stock, Papa believed the natives should be well treated and even all but adopted an aboriginal boy named Tully, getting him to bathe and wear clothes and educating him alongside his seven children. However, as Hester hints starting early on in the novel, having a white family monopolizing resources put an impossible strain on relations with the natives.

It seems an inevitable irony of reviewing – or maybe it’s just me? – that the books you love the most are the hardest to write about. However can I do this book justice? I wonder about lots of 5-star books. It’s easier to put together a review when you have some mixture of positive and negative things to say, but I have no faults to find with Salt Creek. It flawlessly evokes its time period and somewhat bleak setting. Hester’s narration is as lyrical as it is nostalgic and matter-of-fact, and I sympathized with her desperation not to be drawn into a Victorian housewife’s cycle of endless pregnancies. The characterization is spot on, especially for figures like Papa or Tully who could have easily been reduced to stereotypes.

Most of all, this is the piercing story of a clash of cultures and the secret prejudices that underpin our beliefs. You might think notions of dominion and looking after ‘poor natives’ are outdated, but just listen in to what particular groups have to say about the environment and intervention abroad and you’ll realize that this is as relevant as ever. Salt Creek comes with my highest recommendation.

Some favorite lines:

“Poor Papa. He pitted himself against the land, yet it was impervious to all his learning and effort and incantatory prayers. The land had its own drives and they ran against Papa’s, blunting all his purposes.”

“I would not have a baby or that would be my life. There would be another and another and nothing left of my self; my life being decided for me.”

“Memories are just the survivors of complete events and are not easy to interpret; in the recalling they can be used to create a story that is only partially true or not true at all.”

“It seemed as if every part of the lagoon had a name and a story and a meaning. The stories were all around us wherever we went. There was scarcely a place without one and it felt as if we were nothing but one more story inside this world and the stories were without number.”

“The longer I looked the more that impression of civilization seemed an illusion.”

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, immersive novel about a family's hardships in South Australia in the mid 1800s. Salt Creek vividly delineates the conflict between the whites and the Ngarrindjeri as well as conflicts within the Finch home. This novel is character driven without much action, yet kept me riveted throughout. I felt such affinity to Hester Finch, the narrator, and her determination to avoid her mother's fate of "losing herself" in a life dominated by a man.

[Amanda - Mrs B's Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

* https://mrsbbookreviews.wordpress.com
In 2016, Salt Creek, the debut novel by author Lucy Treloar was shortlisted and won a whole host of awards. Salt Creek was a finalist contender for the Miles Franklin award and the recipient of the Matt Richell Award for a New Writer. With all these accolades attached to Salt Creek, I thought it was high time that I read this book.

Salt Creek follows the misfortunes of the Finch family, beginning from the year 1855. This pioneering farming family, headed by Quaker patriarch Stanton, comprises of nine family members. The book is narrated solely by Hester, one of the Finch children, who at the time of the main events of the book is aged fifteen. It quickly becomes apparent through Hester’s intimate style of storytelling that she is a headstrong young lady. Through Hester’s intuitive point of view, we learn how the Finch family have fallen on hard times due to Stanton’s questionable business ventures. It has meant the once wealthy family have had to make the move away from the civilised settlement of Adelaide, to an isolated stretch of coastline called the Coorong. Residing on a simple sheep and cattle station, Salt Creek explores how this family survives in a somewhat inhospitable region of Australia. Intertwined with the forbidden love affairs, deaths and financial difficulties experienced by the Finch clan are their interactions with the local indigenous population, the Ngarrindjeri people. When Tully, a half caste young man enters the Finch’s lives, it brings complications to both Tully and the Finch’s. This story arc forms the solid backbone for this piece of colonial focussed, Australian historical fiction.

Salt Creek is a novel that has been passionately researched and definitely treads important ground. With strong themes of land rights, the disrespect of aboriginal culture, moral divisions, the financial stresses on pioneering families, the sheer isolation of this era, women’s rights and the list could go on. Treloar sets out to achieve a novel grand in scale and issues. I respected many of the issues this novelist set out to explore and Treloar does this with skill.

What I enjoyed about Salt Creek was the main South Australian based setting, the Coorong. It is an area or stretch of coastline I am unfamiliar with. It seemed to come alive in this novel. As I was reading the passages of the pages of this book, I could taste the salt and breathe in the fresh sea air but also sense its danger. I felt the strong sense of desperation and isolation of this region. In a sense, the Coorong could almost be another character is the book, as it comes across as so bold.

There are many characters that fill the pages of Salt Creek. Hester is our chief narrator of the story, who as the story opens, gives us her version of the events from her family when she is fifteen. We later learn Hester has escaped life in Salt Creek and now lives a more comfortable life in England. Hester is a spirited young lady, who struggles with the constraints placed on her gender. Treloar uses the character of Hester to show how women of this era were faced with little choice in the direction of their lives, no matter what their inner aspirations were. For Hester and her sisters, their lives are almost pre determined when their father decides to sell them off, in order to settle his business debts and dealings. Appalling, but quite common at the time, women were possessions, used to pawn lucrative marriage deals and bring all important heirs. The other significant character in Salt Creek is Tully. We learn Tully is a young man stuck between two cultures, shunned by his own indigenous family for the colour of his skin, when he is taken in by the Finch family. But Tully struggles to fit in with the white Finch family too and when a relationship develops between Tully and one of the Finch girls, there are consequences to bear.

The indigenous are a focal point of this novel. In fact, Salt Creek was inspired by the author’s fascination with a family history side story, where a local indigenous boy resided with her ancestor. Treloar was inspired by this tale and considered how this boy grappled with fitting in between two very different cultures. In Tully, we learn about the downfalls experienced by those of mixed race. We also learn about the issues of land rights, the displacement of the indigenous and how European settlement brought disease to the local people. It makes for hard reading at times, but it is an imperative part of Australia’s history, which needs to be brought to our attention.

Added to this ambitious novel of early settlement in South Australia is a thread of mystery, which brought a sense of intrigue and satisfaction, especially when the book came to a close. Salt Creek is an introspective commentary on the harsh life in the teething years, following early settlement in Australia. It also serves to highlight the plight of a particular tribe of indigenous people native to the Coorong, the Ngarrindjeri, whose voices from long ago have arisen by the power of Treloar’s writing. Salt Creek is a recommend piece of work from an author who meshes Australian fact and fiction, into one powerful tale.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I did not believe any crop would grow on it or any livestock thrive. Everywhere were rolling grey shrubs and here and there a tree grown slantwise in the wind, I supposed, though it was still enough that day. If the land was an ill-patterned plate, the sky was a vast bowl that curved to meet the ground a very great distance from us in any direction we cared to look. There was no going beyond its rim.”

Salt Creek is the first novel by award-winning Australian author, Lucy Treloar. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Hester Finch reflects on her early years spent in the Coorong in South Australia. Having failed with a whaling station and lost a shipment of sheep at sea, stubborn pride prevents Stanton Finch from accepting financial help from his in-laws.

He cuts his losses in Adelaide and takes his dairy herd to Salt Creek, then brings his wife and seven children from their city mansion to a basic home that is barely more than a large shed. There, they attempt, with little success, to make a living. He is no businessman, and even when this ill-advised venture turns out to be much to the detriment of his family’s welfare, Finch’s obstinacy does not falter.

Initially, their encounters with the natives are few, but one young man becomes a regular visitor: the Finches eventually refer to Tully as a friend, almost considering him family. “He was the most alert, conscious person I had ever met, poised for anything: flight, danger, contests of strength or will, and to learn more - always that.”

Finch’s philosophy towards the native population (the “poor wretches”) is one of tolerance and charity: he hopes to co-exist peacefully. But he does not recognise that the Coorong is quite unsuitable to his farming methods, and he fails to see the damage it does to the resources the indigenous people have managed for centuries. Instead, he believes he is selflessly bestowing upon these “savages” the great privilege of European civilisation. That very European perspective of the time is blind to the sophisticated civilisation that already exists there.

Things inevitably go wrong. Tully and his people could see it coming: “We knew that you, grinkari would come with muskets. The ancestors knew about you… We knew it would happen. Some people say we will be cursed if we don’t help you and that’s why people get sick and die, as they did before in other places. It makes no difference if we hate you or don’t hate you. We must live with you; you must live with us.”

Treloar’s plot is easily believable, with some incidents based on historical fact. Her characters are equally credible and their dialogue feels authentic. Hester’s father definitely bears some resemblance to the Poisonwood Bible’s Nathan Price: the best of intentions, but culturally insensitive. Her descriptive prose is often exquisite: “…the space they lived in was vast and the sky without limit. They flowed through it as sure and inevitable as gravity, as if the space itself were a living thing and part of them and they part of it.”

Treloar hints at some of the many amazing facts, revealed in Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, about Australia’s indigenous population at the time of colonisation. With this truly fine piece of Australian historical fiction, Treloar sets the bar high, not just for her own subsequent works, but for other authors of this genre. A brilliant debut novel.

[Dale Harcombe · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 and a half stars
Firstly what a gorgeous cover on this book. I love it when publishing houses get it absolutely right. This is a beautifully written book that evokes the landscape and the times extremely well. Although the novel to starts in Chichester England in 1874, it soon goes back to The Coorong, South Australia in 1855. The story is told from Hester’s point of view as she remembers her first sight of their new home and the despair from family members as they saw it. It then tells of the years and events that followed after Stanton Finch, who is struggling financially, uproots his family from Adelaide.
This novel depicts a harsh landscape and a harsh time. While, it is the story of the Finch family and their hardships and loss, it is also of their interaction with the Ngarrindjeri people and in particular one boy, Tully, who Stanton Finch takes into home, with consequences no-one expected.
This is not a book to skim over, although there were a couple of places like the killing of the calf that this city born girl skimmed. But the rest requires considered reading. It is a book to savour. It makes you realise how much things have changed in many ways and how little they have in others. My sympathy was very strongly with Hester (Hetty) and what others in this family went through because of an arrogant, stubborn man who put his own needs above anyone else. That he used the bible to try and justify his behaviour only made me dislike him even more. There are some parts in this book that will tear at your heartstrings. I’d recommend this for anyone who loves historical fiction, Aussie stories, those that explore relationships between people from different cultures, or just an engaging story well told.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an absolutely stunning and exquisitely written book. The story of the Finches, their trials and tribulations at Salt Creek is both poignant and hopeful. There is so much heartbreak and so many heart wrenching moments in this book. Like Hester and Addie, Frank and Tully, I found myself riling against "Papa". A proud and stubborn man who would sacrafice his family for his own needs. This book and Treloar's writing, for me, was very reminiscent of both The Secret River and The Poisonwood Bible. Not wanting to take anything away from Lucy Treloar's brilliant novel, I mean the comparison to these two favourites of mine as a compliment. Like both these authors before her she has captured the essence of the countryside and the era she is writing about and of the people in it. The natives and the settlers. I couldn't help but compare Stanton Finch to Nathan Price. They both had the same singleminded and zealous attitude towards achieving their ends with total disregard to the consequences. There were moments of real dread and fear in this book, as you held your breath and struggled to read ahead, not knowing what you may find but there was also hope. Treloar writes of a harsh place and time in Australia's history but does it beautifully with feeling and respect for all involved.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book. I was hooked already on page 7: 'It is my past come to meet me.'
I don't know how she does it, but Lucy Treloar manages to place you to Salt Creek in a wink of an eye and you are there surrounded with salty bushes or lying on a shelley beach. The same with her characters. They feel so close you only need to stretch out your hand and touch Tull, or Addie or any one of this family.
It gave me a lot to think about the first settlers - rough Mr. Martin, Mr. Finch, who is trying to hide his weakness behind his Bible and Mr. Stubbs, who comes across first as a hopeless figure and turns out to be a generous and caring person. It seems that the new country was a country for men. Anything male had the power to do nearly what ever he wanted. Woe to you if you have been a woman, no matter whether it is a wife or daughter...and off course black. You better not to be black.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I would recommend first watching this video to get a sense of who the Ngarrindjeri people are. They are the original people living in the region of South Australia, inhabiting the Coorong and surrounding areas, full of salt marshes and water systems. This novel takes place as settlers are moving in, claiming lands and pushing the Ngarrindjeri people farther inland. The Finch family struggles for survival in their isolated setting, with failing livestock and rotting cheese. Not many of the humans make it through either. Mr. Finch is more openminded than many of the other white men in the area, encouraging his children to treat the native population as human and valued by God, but then he is tested in his beliefs.

This is a similar story to Little House or My Antonia that are set in the American midwest, but in a different country. I did not know much about the settling of Australia past the use of it as a prison, so I felt like I learned a lot. And the setting, in South Australia where even now this region is pretty sparsely populated, was definitely an interesting one. There are 40 nations along the waterways of Australia that have had land taken away, and this mismanagement continues to be a political issue in Australia.

This is a solid read, but I would recommend the print over the audio for American readers. While the narrator does not have a noticeable Australian accent (I'd call it "British" but not regional in any way), she pronounces "peninsula" as "pen-IN-chew-la." I understand this to be an Australian pronunciation, which is fine, but since it gets mentioned so often, it got a bit grating (and no other words are noticeably Australian in their use.) And her voicing of the native population is just the wrong nationality. You can hear how the Ngarrindjeri speak English at the video I link above, but the narrator makes them sound Punjabi.

[Sharon Robards · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderfully written and evocative book and goes a long way to capturing the human condition through its narrative and characterisations. Set in 1855, the Finch family leave the comforts of their city life and “good society” after falling on hard times and set off to the remote and beautiful Salt Creek.

Told through the eyes of Hester Finch, the eldest daughter and fifteen when the story starts, we see the family flung into an inhospitable coastal wildness inhabited by the Ngarrindjeri people. Her father Stanton Finch hopes for a change in his family’s fortunes by becoming a grazier.

The clash of cultures in this appears at first so supple when an Aboriginal boy, Tully, becomes a friend and part of the family. But as we slowly see the destruction not only of the Ngarrindjeri people’s land and the people themselves, we also see what might also be the destruction of the Finch’s family unit as each member deals with Stanton Finch’s unmovable belief that civilisation is best for the natives and in turn progress will return his family fortunes.

Watching her father trying to make right all that is wrong in the world, including his own fundamental flaws and her family and the Aboriginals flounder under his choices, causes Hester to question all she understands about her family, the Aboriginals, and herself.

This has a deceptive and slow build up to a very powerful story about love, loss and hope set during harsh times in a harsh society, told with both empathy and insight, which made it impossible for me to put down after I had read a few pages.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this! Brilliantly written, powerful and moving throughout, with fascinating historical insight and superb characterisation. I'd highly recommend!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my detailed inspection of its exquisite cover to the very last word of the Acknowledgements, I was totally absorbed in this book.

It is 1855 and the Coorong region of South Australia has recently opened up to graziers for the first time. The large Finch family, headed by failed-entrepreneur Papa Finch, arrives at Salt Creek Station to try their luck with cattle.

Albert and Fred found sticks as boys always seem to and ran in circles mad as young dogs about the house, wider and wider, whipping the tall grasses until the seed heads flew in the late sun.

Mrs Finch and some of the children struggle to comprehend their reduced circumstances, and Hester (eldest daughter and the narrator) in particular endures a real tug-of-war of feelings about her surroundings; she grows to love Salt Creek, but she hates the idea of the small life she would be resigned to, were she to stay.

A strong theme in this story is the impact of European settlement on the Indigenous population, and Treloar handles this with respect and sensitivity, while at the same time not shying away from exposing the reader to the brutality, arrogance and ignorance of the time.

[Dillwynia Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some reason this book took me two months to read. It isn’t boring, nor poorly written, but it also didn’t grab me.

Books set in South Australia have become thin on the ground. We had Colin Thiele years ago, but no one now is telling the SA stories. This one is set in the mid 19th century in the Cooroong – a place that was made famous by Thiele’s Storm Boy. I hope more writers are inspired to tell more South Australian stories: Adelaide and the state has had an interesting history and the experiences have been different from the other states.

The story centres on a family that is down on its luck. Father does business gambles, which fail; Mother has a wealthy family who will bail them out, but Father has decided to fix this failure by himself. It’s obvious what the outcome will be.

It has a number of well worn tropes that didn’t inspire me: Mother pining for England, and thus wilting in the harsh Australian climate till she dies; strong smart eldest daughter that carries the family through the trials; younger siblings that refuse to help and are pampered by Father, and so on.

I had no issue with the behaviour of Father towards Tully, the indigenous boy who is taught to read, etc. He is a Quaker and this behaviour of civilising the savages was very much part of their calling. His subsequent behaviour towards Tully is also realistic and quite Victorian and I believed that too. However, my disbelief in Addie’s behaviour severely stretched my patience. There are plenty of stories of young men taking on indigenous wives, but a well bred girl being prepared to run off with an indigenous boy just didn’t work. I even would have accepted had it been one of the maids at the local inn, who were very down on their luck.

There is a fun twist in the narrative, based on an event that did occur in the area during this period. I don’t want to spoil it, but it adds a wonderful spice to the story. A restriction of the narrator means the story can’t be explored further.

The writing style is a pleasant read, and except for a realisation that something had to have happened half way due to the time period flipping, it does have a pleasant level of suspense. If you haven’t read a lot of Australian literature regaling 19th century colonial life, or you aren’t as critical as myself in realistic scenarios, then I think you will enjoy it.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really haven't been reading this book for several months, it's more a question of fitting in pleasure reading in between required reading for class. Now, my current class has ended and I have a week before the next one begins, I have been able to turn briefly to chosen reading. I finished the last two thirds of this book in two sittings over this weekend. It's a marvelous tale, which engaged my interest and moved my heart.

Favorite quotes:
This one is quite profound and takes some time to ponder on:"Life is so much absence and emptiness and vivid stretches and disconnected fragments when everything happens; things that light up in memory while all around is darkness."

This next one is a wonderful example of the author's beautiful, descriptive language: "Her condition became her; it magnified her: the winter cream of her skin became high blooded at her cheeks, her eyes were as clear as any summer sky and each of her movements - picking up a tea-cup, arranging flowers in a jar, brushing a curl from an eye - was filled with a languorous grace."

Finally, I just love how the author brings this garment to life and lends it such symbolism: "I shook out the rustling folds of cream silk. Heavy wings of skirt and underskirt fell away from a whalebone bodice; it was trimmed in lace and satin ribbon and had mother-of-pearl buttons up its long wrists and up its back. It seemed to gather all the light of the dining room into it and send out some light of its own. It was an uneasy sort of garment, made from things of land and sea."

[zed · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written exploration of a family’s colonial history in the Coorong area in South Australia, but it felt weighed down by the length that could have been maybe 100 pages less. There were also a couple of unrealistic events, a dual family pregnancy, for example.

The author states in a note at the end that it is a blend of fact and fiction, and lets the reader know who was based on whom. I wonder if this mash up may not have suited me, as it all felt out of kilter.

Be that as it may, it was an easy read and I certainly understand why others have enjoyed it far more than me.

[MaryG2E · Rating 5 out of 5]

This remarkable piece of historical fiction is narrated by Hester Finch, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Finch, formerly of Adelaide, who have arrived in straitened circumstances at an isolated pastoral station in the Coorong area of South Australia in 1855. Her Papa, proud patriarch of his family, is a strong-willed man with poor business sense, whose financial misjudgment has thrown the respectable Finches into debt and poverty. Hester’s Mama, struggling to raise nine children, falls into a profound depression due to the family’s plight at Salt Creek Station, and becomes increasingly ill, weak and emotionally remote.

The poor soils and harsh climate of the Coorong do not make for a successful pastoral venture in the European farming tradition, although there are great riches hidden in the landscape. The local Aborigines, members of the Ngarrindjeri tribe, have millennia of knowledge and experience and a spiritual connection to the land which is totally alien to the white Christian colonists from Britain. Tull, a member of the local clan, forms a bond with the Finches, who welcome his presence and set out to educate and civilise him, elevating him above what they see as his debased and doomed relatives.

One of the great strengths of Treloar’s novel is her depiction of the nuanced relationships between the races on the frontier of European penetration into traditional lands. Various degrees of racial prejudice and stereotyping are played out as the assorted characters reveal their personal biases. Papa Finch thinks he is a great humanitarian (so typical of his vanity and ego), but he shows a less charitable side to his nature when his personal interests are threatened. Hester’s brothers run the gamut from outright bigotry through to deep respect, but I don’t think any of them properly comprehend the Aboriginal mind and its subtle ways. Only Adelaide, Hester’s younger sister, really understands and loves Tull for who he is.

For me the two outstanding characters in the book are Hester and her father, Mr Finch, and their battle of wills is beautifully portrayed, drawn out as it is over a long period of time. I was fascinated by the portrayal of Papa, who saw himself as highly moral and decent, with his compassion for the local natives. Yet he was full of failings, deceit, and downright callousness. Above all he was stuffed full of personal vanity and pride. Puffed up with the pretention that he was an upright Christian and a proper English gentleman, whose word is his honour, he made appalling financial decisions which brought about the diminution of the family’s assets and prestige. As the narrative progresses we learn just how deeply Papa’s lofty convictions and moral tone have fallen.

The other highly impressive character is Hester, the novel’s narrator. What a highly principled woman she is, together with her incisive intellect and emotional balance. Her loyalty to her pompous, incompetent father is admirable, as is her dedication to the welfare of her siblings. She demonstrates an insightful grasp of the psychological tensions between men and women, and she sticks to her determination to avoid the fate of so many women, including her beloved mother. Her compassion extends to Tull and his relatives, who continue to live a traditional lifestyle as best they can in a region increasing compromised by European intrusions. Interestingly, Hester never presumes to understand the subtleties of the Aboriginal traditions and lifestyle, but she always shows respect.

I think that is one of the unique features of Treloar’s novel. It does not attempt to tie everything up neatly, so there is no real ‘closure’ on many of the events and issues that beset Hester and her family. To me this speaks to the confidence of the author in her literary decisions, and the sophistication of her perspective on the colonial narrative.

Salt Creek is a deserved inclusion in the long list for this year’s Miles Franklin Award, and it has earned high praise from literary critics. It was one of the top ten books voted in Jennifer Byrne’s Book Club for 2015. Although it is a rather slow read, rather than light and easy, it captured my attention and kept me reading late into the night to see how everyone finished up. I think it makes a valuable contribution to the genre of Australian historical fiction, well worth reading.
5★s

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The audio version of Lucy Treloar's brilliant debut novel is beautifully read by Ulli Birve.
“I did not believe any crop would grow on it or any livestock thrive. Everywhere were rolling grey shrubs and here and there a tree grown slantwise in the wind, I supposed, though it was still enough that day. If the land was an ill-patterned plate, the sky was a vast bowl that curved to meet the ground a very great distance from us in any direction we cared to look. There was no going beyond its rim.”

Salt Creek is the first novel by award-winning Australian author, Lucy Treloar. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Hester Finch reflects on her early years spent in the Coorong in South Australia. Having failed with a whaling station and lost a shipment of sheep at sea, stubborn pride prevents Stanton Finch from accepting financial help from his in-laws.

He cuts his losses in Adelaide and takes his dairy herd to Salt Creek, then brings his wife and seven children from their city mansion to a basic home that is barely more than a large shed. There, they attempt, with little success, to make a living. He is no businessman, and even when this ill-advised venture turns out to be much to the detriment of his family’s welfare, Finch’s obstinacy does not falter.

Initially, their encounters with the natives are few, but one young man becomes a regular visitor: the Finches eventually refer to Tully as a friend, almost considering him family. “He was the most alert, conscious person I had ever met, poised for anything: flight, danger, contests of strength or will, and to learn more - always that.”

Finch’s philosophy towards the native population (the “poor wretches”) is one of tolerance and charity: he hopes to co-exist peacefully. But he does not recognise that the Coorong is quite unsuitable to his farming methods, and he fails to see the damage it does to the resources the indigenous people have managed for centuries. Instead, he believes he is selflessly bestowing upon these “savages” the great privilege of European civilisation. That very European perspective of the time is blind to the sophisticated civilisation that already exists there.

Things inevitably go wrong. Tully and his people could see it coming: “We knew that you, grinkari would come with muskets. The ancestors knew about you… We knew it would happen. Some people say we will be cursed if we don’t help you and that’s why people get sick and die, as they did before in other places. It makes no difference if we hate you or don’t hate you. We must live with you; you must live with us.”

Treloar’s plot is easily believable, with some incidents based on historical fact. Her characters are equally credible and their dialogue feels authentic. Hester’s father definitely bears some resemblance to the Poisonwood Bible’s Nathan Price: the best of intentions, but culturally insensitive. Her descriptive prose is often exquisite: “…the space they lived in was vast and the sky without limit. They flowed through it as sure and inevitable as gravity, as if the space itself were a living thing and part of them and they part of it.”

Treloar hints at some of the many amazing facts, revealed in Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, about Australia’s indigenous population at the time of colonisation. With this truly fine piece of Australian historical fiction, Treloar sets the bar high, not just for her own subsequent works, but for other authors of this genre. A brilliant debut novel.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★ A rather bleak story, set in South Australia’s Coorong region in the 1850s - 1870s. I am always reminded when I read books set in this period (especially Australian books of this era) just how hard it was to be a woman at this time. Or a child, because the children had to grow up quickly and take on the duties of adulthood earlier than we are accustomed to in this day and age.

I felt sorry for Hester, and her mother. I initially thought her father was good at heart, but a product of his times, although my view of him changed over the course of the book. I can’t imagine how the family, but especially Hester, had the endurance to go on with doing everything that had to be done day in, day out with all the trials and setbacks that they had. Hester was determined that she wouldn’t follow the same path as her mother (marriage, which would lead to babies and children to whom she would then be irrevocably tied, working her hands to the bone to keep them all fed and clothed and the household running smoothly, and especially not stuck in the middle of nowhere) and yet her determination to avoid this, enmeshed her in a similarly hopeless situation just as much as if she had married - at least in the short term.

There were some interesting scenes with interactions between the native inhabitants and the English Finch family which highlighted the misunderstandings between the 2 groups of people. These were often disappointing in the extent of how misguided the new settlers were in how they acted and spoke to the native Aboriginal people. It made me think about how we - even in this day and age, or perhaps especially in this day and age - do things that create an impact on our world, while the Aboriginal people walked so lightly on the earth, that they left very little evidence of their presence and knew how to live more sustainably than we did at that time and more so than we do now. And yet, I don't think I would manage very well if I had to give up my Western trappings and live as an Aboriginal... I wish I could be a little like the main Aboriginal character, Tully, and live in the best of both worlds! Although Tully's life was still not without its dramas and difficulties.

It’s difficult to believe that Salt Creek is a debut novel because it was quite beautifully written. Beautifully narrated, too, by Ulli Birvé. I remember there were some lovely descriptive passages, but overall my impression of the writing is that it reflected its setting in a sense - spartan, and a little bleak.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘It is my past come to meet me.’

This novel is set in the 1850s, in the Coorong region of South Australia. Salt Creek may be beautiful, but this coastal region is remote from Adelaide and comparatively inhospitable. The land has been opened up to graziers, and this is why the Finch family move there. Stanton Finch has fallen on hard times and hopes to make enough money to repay his debts and return to polite society in Adelaide. His wife never really adjusts to the move. Hester, the main character in the story, is aged sixteen when the story opens. It is Hester’s lot to take increasing levels of responsibility in caring for the large Finch family.

‘My life occupied a small space; it was time that moved: days and weeks and months and seasons and years rolling across me as inevitable as night.’

Disaster follows disaster for the Finch family. Scheme after scheme fail for Stanton Finch. He is driven to make money and repay his debts even as his endeavours tear his family apart. Some of the sons leave, and Hester dreams of a day when she can leave as well. In the background, the Ngarrindjeri people are having their world destroyed. One young boy, Tully, is taken in by the Finches. Tully learns with the Finch children, lives in their home and works on the property. Through Tully, some of the Finch children come to appreciate some elements of indigenous culture. But Tully is never accepted as being equal by Stanton Finch and some of his sons, and this leads to a series of tragedies.

‘Life is so much absence and emptiness and vivid stretches and disconnected fragments when everything happens; things that light up in memory while all around is darkness.’

To say more about the story could ruin it for those intending to read it. I found it a haunting story, almost unbearably sad at times, and beautifully written. While some elements can be predicted, others have an element of surprise. Aspects of the story, and certain of the characters remain with me, and I suspect that this is a novel I will choose to reread.

‘Perhaps we all had things we would rather keep to ourselves.’

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Australia for an opportunity to read an advance copy of this novel.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[joyce g · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written novel blending fact and fiction into an immersive tale. Highly recommend to those readers who like to get lost in a story.

[Trudie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third book in my survey of this years Miles Franklin shortlist and it wore me out it is so sort of ....earnest. Set in the 1850's in South Australia it tells a fairly straightforward story of the hardships of the Finch family, their struggle with the land and the complex and unfortunate race relations between them and the indigenous Ngarrindjeri people.
This is one of those books in which the research feels much more palpable than I would like, details feel shoe-horned in, in a way that doesn't always aid the overall flow of the narrative. I suspect enjoyment of this novel may hinge on how you feel about the Finch family - I rather dutifully followed along with their family history but without much real feeling for them. The dramatic moments when they came seemed oddly flat as if told at a far remove from the events themselves - this may have been a stylistic choice.
Historically interesting, ambitious but ultimately a little boring ?

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salt Creek is a powerful and riveting account of a family struggling to make a living in the harsh environment of coastal South Australia, depicting the pioneering patriarchal entrepreneur and his devoted but long suffering wife, and the children that will grow up with both an attachment to the place and an instinct to escape it. This story gets inside you and makes you feel the struggle and the dilemma, and wish that it could have been different.

We meet Hester Finch, in Chichester, England in 1874 where she lives as a widow with her son Joss, in the house where her mother spent her childhood, remembered from the stories her mother used to tell, in a place so far from this new reality, of that life in Salt Creek, South Australia.

Hester takes us back to her childhood in the Coorong, narrating the family story throughout the period she lived with them at Salt Creek from 1855 to 1862. Her father was an entrepreneurial businessman, who could never settle to one thing, without always having his eye on the next great idea, the thing that was going to make him rich, a success. For a while the family had lived in Adelaide, while he ran a successful dairying business, but not content to stick with that he would borrow against the things that seemed solid to invest in the next thing. He'd bought land at Salt Creek, but the sheep he'd hoped to farm were lost at sea while being transported, causing the entire family to be uprooted as the family home required selling to pay the debts.

The family find themselves leaving their grandparents, friends and familiar town environment behind to live on an isolated peninsula in rural South Australia. They must rely on each for company, schooling and help their parents out to run the farm and household.
Hester's mother becomes melancholy and withdrawn from the moment she views her future home, requiring Hester to have to step into a more encompassing role than just that of eldest daughter. To add to her woes, their mother whose youngest Mary is only three years old, discovers she is again with child, and the nearest neighbour not company she can bring herself to indulge.

Mrs Robinson was no comfort to her and never would be; she was the measure for Mama of how far she had fallen.

The family discover indigenous people camping not far from their property, and become interested in a young boy Tully, who is able to speak a little English and seems keen to learn more. Slowly he slips into their lives, though without ever letting go of his ways, his disappearances, his unassuming manner, his sharing of old knowledge about which trees can and shouldn't be cut, which ducks to avoid, much of it disregarded particularly by the two eldest sons and the father as superstitions to be ignored.

"Do you know what that boy told me today? That we shouldn't have chopped that tree down and then showed me which ones we should use, can you believe it? Didn't have all the words but did very well making his thoughts known. I told him we would use the wood that we saw fit since it was ours, not his, and did not trouble to conceal my feelings."

Although the father believes himself to have an enlightened view, that all men are created equal and seen by the Divine as being equal, his beliefs are challenged when it comes to his own family, both in the example he sets for his son (in relation to indigenous women) and the restrictions he places on his daughters (including his desire to use matrimony as business negotiating device).

It is the younger siblings who grow into and live his more open minded view, and who will force to the surface his deep conditioning, which is unable to embrace those beliefs at all. Hester recalls the first day they set eyes on indigenous people and is filled with remorse:

When I think of what they became to us and how long I have been thinking of them I would like to return to that day and stop the dray and shout at our ghostly memories and the natives: 'I am sorry. I am sorry for what is to come.'

While the older boys rebel by going off to try their luck in the goldfields, the younger sibling Fred stands his ground and resists his fathers efforts to use him as a form of payment, he spends a lot of time drawing plants in his notebook and is fascinated by the work of Charles Darwin.

"Watching Fred, I began to wonder if it was something other than interest and curiosity alone that drove his actions. He was so purposeful in what he did. Self doubt did not occur to him; he was able to look only at the thing, the task before him. I wished that I could do the same. My own self was mysterious t me. Oh, I knew what I did, but other than that I was invisible to myself...I did not know or see the difference that I made, the space I occupied in this world."

Hester stays and stays, witness to all that occurs, as the challenges of Salt Creek and the rigid attitude of their father begin to wear everyone down. Hester is warned more than once, that she should not hesitate should there be an opportunity for her to escape. Mrs Robinson comments 'Hard for girls like you' to Hester and when questioned why, tells her:

I know, my dear, I know. It's the expectations that hold you back. They'll kill you in the end, if you're not careful, suck the life right out of you. Run, I say. Run whenever you should have the chance, don't spare a glance back or you'll turn to salt or stone."

Brilliantly conceived and heartbreaking to read, Salt Creek opens itself wide for discussion on the many issues related to the impact of colonial idealism, whether it's how it affects women and children, how it impacts and impedes the native population, the imposition of solutions by one group on the other, the inherent disrepect and disregard for a different way of life.

I'm interested to read these accounts yet I am repelled by what transpires, knowing there is no possibility for an alternative ending, it is and always be a kind of clash of civilisations, which annihilates the ancient view, and will only accept its input when it has been turned it into a version of itself.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As soon as I saw this book on a friends tbr pile I knew it was exactly my kind of read. Historical literary fiction set in a bleak and harsh alien wilderness with its attendant dangers, brings the opportunity to step back in time and slip into someone else’s shoes and I wasn’t disappointed with the time travel experience this beautifully written, wonderful, haunting novel presented.

Salt Creek begins in England in the 1870s where Hetty is reminiscing about the years she spent living in the Coorong Australia with her parents and siblings. Coorong is the absolute back of beyond and Salt creek is its armpit! A harsh, bleak and very lonely place, yet it haunts her very existence.

Her intractable Papa is a feckless and reckless soul who never quite manages to make a success of any venture he tries yet he is full of big ideas and will never admit defeat. So in 1955 when his life in Adelaide begins to crumble he drags his unwilling family across the plains of Australia to live in a wooden shack he has built with his bare hands, at the edge of a dry country near a coastal inlet where the nearest neighbours are far below the families previous social status, even these Innkeepers, live over 10 miles away running a hotel which caters for the odd passing traveller.

15 year old Hester Finch (Hetty) is appalled when she realises how far they have fallen from the polite society they used to belong to and which now rejects them. A simmering resentment of having to do what her father dictates, together with watching her formerly bright and pretty mother become a nervous drudge, builds and she vows she will never be beholden to a man. She also worries what will become of her younger sister Addy, a sweet, flirty, flighty young miss, prone to tantrums and the apple of her fathers eye.

Life in this totally isolated and relentless spot takes its inevitable toll on the family and all the time Papa’s great ideas falter and fail. The cattle he planned to raise starve in the barren heat, so he exchanges them for sheep, to find they fare no better. He ends up working himself and his sons almost to death with little success and always his misplaced pride stops him asking for help from family and making bad decision after worse – a trait which will have disastrous consequences.

Meanwhile Hetty tries to make the most of their lot. They are a large family and her older and younger brothers plus 2 younger sisters provide companionship and the inevitable sibling rivalries. The odd visitor who occasionally passes their way, some travelling musicians, an artist and his father, provide a little relief from the isolation and an aboriginal boy called Tull whom Papa tries to educate and civilise as part of a pointless anthropological experiment, becomes a pivotal part of the family as his education distances him from his own kin yet his black skin and cultural beliefs prevent him from ever really being part of the Finch family even though he lives as part of the household. His inclusion into the family causes Hetty to wonder just what civilization actually means.

The family have to live beside the natives who have lived off the land around for centuries and who have legends and myths deeply ingrained in the salty sand, but the Finch families intervention changes and damages the land and contaminates the water sucks where the natives get their water from therefore has an adverse effect on the aboriginal folks lives and a resentful truce is difficult to maintain.

I just slid into Hetties skin as though I was born in it, I felt and smelt and lived every second of her difficult life and devoured this deeply affecting and completely wonderful novel, drinking every drop of descriptive storytelling from the bottom of the mug and exhaling a satisfied Aahhh at the end of it.

It is one of those books you wish you’d never come to the end of, yet you can’t wait to get there to discover the outcome. It’s a book to savour, to enjoy and definitely to make you think.

My copy has some reading group notes at the back and I agree this will make a wonderful read for groups of enthusiastic readers who love to discuss and dissimilate every nuance of a story.

Read this and other reviews on my book blog:
https://beadyjansbooks.blogspot.co.uk/

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is rare to discover a historical fiction set in Victorian-era South Australia, but to have that same book carve a place in my heart is even rarer. Lucy Treloar's debut is filled with rich and lyrical prose that weaves through the foreign yet familiar landscape of the Coorong and South Australian bushlands.

The Finch family are down on their luck, and the enterprising father decides to gamble their futures on a stock run along the Coorong. The landscape is vast and everlasting, yet attempts are made to settle into a family home pieced together from the bones of shipwrecks. Hester is a constant companion throughout the novel, as her recollections on the desolation and destruction wrought by her father on his family and the land are emotionally charged. A brilliantly stark depiction of settler life and mentality towards the land and First Australians, and the interactions between the Finch family and Tully, an Aboriginal boy, allow the destructive colonialist ideas overpower the idealistic enlightened thoughts - especially when Mr Finch is faced with ruin and disgrace.

A once enlightening and questioning, the drama of the novel drives the reader to question rights of ownership, colonialist past, male dominance in settler states and the lingering attitudes towards First Australians. A historical fiction I would recommend to an enquiring mind with a love of rich prose.