Woman of the Inner Sea

by Thomas Keneally

Why would wealthy Kate Gaffney-Kozinsky flee her husband, lover, family, and society? What can she find by losing herself in the bleak Australian outback? The fascinating answers shape a novel that gives new definition to a woman's strength and endurance. Kate's odyssey takes her from a privileged girlhood, through her meaningless marriage to a lawless tycoon, and an empty erotic affair with a true-blue gentleman. But when her life of pampered pleasure gives way to one of unspeakable tragedy, all certainties are shattered, and Kate is plunged into a blind gamble on an unknown future in the middle of nowhere. The job she finds, the lovers she takes, and her final confrontation with her husband's power and her own past self interweave comedy, irony, drama, suspense, and wondrously affirmative human revelation. With its vivid setting, its cross-section of colorful characters, and, at its center, its passionate heroine caught in a nightmare of grief and deception, Women of the Inner Sea  is at once startlingly intimate and universally appealing. It adds a new dimension and fresh luster to one of the major literary reputations of our time. 

"One of the finest storytellers in the business . . . at the top of his form . . . an extraordinary, eloquently written tale."— The Boston Globe

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Australia, Book Club

277 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 1994

About the author

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Often published under the name Tom Keneally in Australia.

Life and Career:

Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist, and he was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books.

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List (1993). Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa).

In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject in Our Republic (1993). Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. He made an appearance in the rugby league drama film The Final Winter (2007).

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's Lincoln biography to President Barack Obama as a state gift.

Most recently Thomas Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama, Our Sunburnt Country.

Thomas Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommendation from reader: re-read the very beginning conversation after completing the book

Not really sure why above recommendation was made. Not even sure which is the "very beginning conversation"…mostly understandable would be between Kate and Uncle Frank, but that's on p. 32.

Very interesting tale of Kate Gaffney-Kozinski, a woman suffering from tragedy and guilt who runs off to the bush to transform into another woman, to kill her original self. Well-told, engaging and very creative. Don't really understand the bit about her dreams of the kangaroo and his tears and his giving her the curse of language. Felt contrived and incomplete. Maybe only Australians could understand. ;)

[Cindy]

Astounding beautiful language. "Big words" as my mom described it. It is actually a treat to read a novel that taxes the brain not in context necessarily as the story is fairly straight forward but rather style, word choice and sentence fluency. No easy way out here; he phrases everything in the most complicated way possible. The obscure nature of the storytelling fits the poetic story line of a woman vanishing from a former life, her story buried deep within the outer surface of the telling. Bits and pieces of the events that mark the tragic past she is attempting to obliterate--eating herself into a new identity.

Set in Australia. Interesting Aussie phrases and characters.

Overall, an odd book. It sticks with you--but all in all I'm still not certain whether I liked it or not...exactly how I felt while I was reading it. Not a quick, easy read. Required several days of careful reading....perhaps I should not have read it in summer?

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't met a Thomas Kenneally book I haven't liked. And since a lot of the descriptions about Sydney's northern beaches hit close to home, it was even better.

[Mike Cuthbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this book on my shelves for years, spooked by the title into avoiding it. It sounded too soft, too mysterious. Tom Keneally is a friend and a favorite author, but the title just didn’t grab me. The story sure did! Kate Gaffney is a comely lass in her thirties, married to a Sydney and Hollywood tycoon, Paul Kozinski. Paul is, like so many unfortunate tycoons, also a bit of a pirate, into all sorts of shady deals. Those are hidden from Kate. Not hidden from her are the shenanigans her Uncle Frank O’Brien gets up to. He is a “not-so-Reverend Father” in the Catholic Church and he and his mistress (there is no other name for Fiona Kearney) have amassed a certain number of properties in and around Sydney and the archdiocese is closing in on Father Frank. Father frank also loves the ponies and there are rumors he’s cut come corners in betting on them. Paul has not only become involved in shady deals but has taken a young mistress, Peridita. Siobhan and Bernard, Kate’s children, have the advantages of wealth but Siobhan has the disadvantage of high intelligence and Bernard of being called “Bernard.” They are getting along despite their handicaps and both doing well in school. One night, the Kozinski house burns down and we find Kate injured, burned about the shoulders and leaving the hospital with a resolve to abandon everything and move to “Back of Bourke,” an Australian expression meaning beyond the Never-Never. There is actually a Bourke in Australia’s New South Wales and Kate heads there, stopping on the way in a town called Myambaugh, a distinctly one-horse town, more village, and she adjusts from a slim, but damaged beauty to a barmaid feasting on steaks and potatoes in a desperate attempt to become matronly and plain while pulling pints at one of the three local pubs. Gradually, she achieves many of her goals and while she adjusts, we learn in bits and pieces that her house burned down with her children in it while she was out to dinner. In the meantime, a rough customer named Burnside, her husband’s prime thug, tracks her down and offers her millions in a property settlement and divorce. The divorce is fine, but she suspects the property settlement is something more than that. She suspects that Paul is using the property settlement to get her to admit more of a role in his dealings than she had. He is trying to stay out of prison. Kate eventually meets and works with a burly, kindly man named Jelly (as in “gelignite,” a popular Aussie explosive once used by an actual Aussie named “Gelignite Jack” to hunt kangaroos) and falls into a relationship with him. Later, there is Gus, a conservationist, with whom she travels for a time in the company of Chifley the gray kangaroo and Menzies, a placid emu, formerly residents of an amusement park. All this time the diet of steak and potatoes have taken their toll and there is less of the Sydney socialite and more of the Back of Bourke in Kate. The story unwinds and we eventually discover the whole story of the fire and the deaths of her children and why she had such scars on her body but they come late and almost as an afterthought to the glorious story that has preceded the denouement. This, in short, is a wonderful Australian story filled with Aussie slang and humor and the informed facts of Keneally who studied for the priesthood for six years himself and could have been Frank O’Brien. Kate is a wonderful heroine, the characters she meets are memorable without being types and this turns out to be one of Keneally’s most engaging stories. Try to find it (from 1994) and enjoy a major bit of Australiana.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. Set in Australia it tells the story of woman bent on transforming herself after tragedy. Interesting and dark. As an American, I felt lost at times in the Australian references and discussion of its history since it is not my own. Good storytelling.

[George Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I pulled this from the shelf knowing almost nothing about Thomas Keneally (except that he wrote the book on which the film Schindler's List is based, and he's Australian). I liked the beginning enough to run with it, but less than a third of the way through, I thought I'd made a mistake. Kate, the protagonist, is from an affluent background, marries into a still more affluent family, infidelity ensues, and I thought I was smack in the middle of a melodrama. But no. Disaster (much worse than infidelity) strikes and she flees everything, even herself, traveling deep into the outback to become the Woman of the Inner Sea. Characters become more and more picturesque, one with an emu and a kangaroo in tow, no less, and I made my second mistake: decided this was an attempt to make the novel a kind of transcendent stereotyping of Australia, filled with characters that all begged to be called "larger than life." But no, again. Kate tries to transform but can't. Tries to escape but can't. Goes back to the circumstances she ran from and does not so much rise above them as ride them to karmic conclusion. Extremely satisfying. Because Kenneally strikes the obtrusive narrative stance of someone telling the story of "our Kate" he drops little clues to what he's up to all along the way, especially at the beginning and end. The one that struck me as odd on the way in seems key now: "It is all very we'll for novelists themselves not to believe in character, but what if the characters themselves have been raised to believe in it?" What if, indeed.

[J.S. Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The difficult emotional terrain for the heroine has an apt metaphor in the flat plain of inner Australia, a prehistoric sea bed: hence the title. This novel covers a lot of emotional territory for less than 300 pages in length. It is not as accessible or folksy as some other titles by Keneally, but worth the effort.

He includes some pithy and amusing comments on the Celtic delusions of second and third generation Irish Aussies, which seem to resemble or at least to parallel the delusions of ' Irishamericans' [ those who would still donate to the IRA not knowing these days it's a raft of thugs, or
those feckless tourists who wander the auld sod in search of a thatched roof and who may be found cluttering up Irish cemeteries looking for their roots. Hand them a parsnip and send them home. ]

[Elizabeth McCulloch · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much going on in this book. As a reader I was engrossed by the twists and turns in the story, the questions that kept me wondering until the end, the tormented character of Kate and the friends she makes in her journey to escape her tragedy and guilt. As a writer I kept trying to figure out all the different ways Kenneally approaches his story, admired his complete mastery and seeming confidence. I particularly loved the growing importance of the two iconic Australian creatures, the kangaroo and the emu,. Her friend rescued and raised them "from pouch and egg," and they become spirit guides for Kate as she tries to bury her old self. It's a wonderful book, and I want to read more Kenneally.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I may have started it when it first came out, but this time when I picked it up, it caught hold of me and I read through to the finish. The downfall and slow recovery of a woman in her early 30s, married to a shit of a real estate developer, and then horribly not. Bit of familiar ethnic conflict, Irish on her side, Polish on his, dueling priests on the altar. But mostly it's about the aftermath, her search for anonymity and oblivion in the great Aussie interior. Lots of interesting glimpses of character and paradoxical emotions, hers and those she travels among. I was fond, as is she, of her uncle the priest, also a bit of a shit, but with charm and lots of Irish shenanigans. A very enjoyable read.

[Chris Cowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back in the 70s, I adored Keneally’s Confederates (thanks Pete as I remember), but for some reason only ever read Schindler’s Ark till this book now, inspired by a wonderful holiday in Australia including the parts where this story takes place.

Well my 3rd Keneally is a disappointment. A good yarn, but somewhat laboured and clunky. The story itself has so much potential, and the characters are mostly well-drawn. But a potentially thrilling story ends up being only passably engaging. Like a lukewarm cup of coffee: doesn’t matter how good the coffee is, it’s still lukewarm. Will, however, re-read Confederates; if I like it half as much as I did back then, it’ll be a stormer

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is by the author of Schindler's List. The protagonist is the victim of a horrible tragedy and tries to disappear into the Australian outback to become another version of herself. We start out knowing something awful has happened, but we are only given hints as the book progresses. The story kept my interest throughout, but the ending was very anticlimactic and disappointing considering what we learn of the truth of what actually happened.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a complicated tale! I loved it. The author presents a hint of tragedy but exactly what it is remains a mystery until almost the very end of the book, and then it unfolds in a most fascinating way.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe this was written by a man. He also wrote Sophie's Choice.

[Dulcie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Inane, formulaic trash. Yet another phone-in by Keneally. Dated tripe; save your time and give it a miss to read something worthwhile.

[Kathleen McAvoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this book. I kept hoping it would get more interesting. A story based in Australia about marital discontent and revenge.

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Keneally spins a convoluted tale full of interesting characters portraying the Australian out back at its most troubling.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

My main impression is less on the innate qualities of the book, than on Keneally himself, as an author questing to write the perfect all-Australian novel. This isn't it, but it's fine enough for the train- and jeep-sped eastward journey away from civilised Sydney to the 'real' outback Oz.

It's the handling of the kangaroo and emu walk-ons that exemplifies the tendency for Keneally to overreach. They are made to carry the Australian character in a none-too-subtle way (lifted as they are from the coat of arms). At one point they stand up against a vaudeville villain capitalist in mute triumph, when I had to check this hadn't been written for 8 year olds. Written more sparingly and concisely, '...Inner Sea' could have made a successful children's book. For maturer readers, I just found it over-long, implausible, and unsubtle.

That's not to say it isn't a good yarn, but its literary pretentions are unmet. Unlike the best of his mid-1970s to early-1980s output, this lacks the deeper emotional punch to really count as a success.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woman Of The Inner Sea by Thomas Keneally is a thoroughly satisfying novel. Via its pages, the reader shares its characters’ experience, inhabits their landscape and almost participates in the stories told. Late twentieth century Australia is where everything happens, but the country’s apparently inescapable sense of its own history continually seeps through the experience. The novel, thus, is more than a story, more than a personal history, more than a drama.

Kate Gaffney-Kozinsky is the book’s central character. Née Gaffney, she was originally of Irish stock and gained the Polish double barrel by virtue of marriage. Virtue may be a stretch of both truth and reality when describing this particular marriage, however.

Kate Gaffney has an uncle who is a priest. Given the Irish connection this is not altogether surprising. But Kate’s uncle is not the usual sort of cleric. He has particular interests and proclivities that result in his rubbing shoulders with the rich, the powerful and the infamous. Thomas Keneally’s novel pre-dates scandal relating to personal abuse by clerics, and there is no mention of this in relation to the story of Kate’s uncle, but the rest will eventually conspire to condemn him and indeed defrock him. But a tension that is present and one that Thomas Keneally brings out to great effect is the way that this Irishness, this anti-British nationalism, can in Australia be lumped together with the traditional English rump to form a contrast with the later arrivals to the country from Greece, Poland, Lebanon, Vietnam, Italy and elsewhere.

It is pertinent to Kate’s story because she meets and marries a Kozinsky, a Pole, one of the more recent, non Anglo-Saxon antipodeans. The family has made a huge fortune in developing investment property. They are rich, famous and successful. Kate’s life is duly transformed.

Two children are born and they begin to grow up in a family whose cracks are beginning to appear. Kate internalises anything that might appear to fall short of overt success. But then mothers often do regard as failure anything less than perfection in themselves, especially in those things that impinge upon their children’s lives. Kate turns to new relationships, seeking there perhaps to fill some of the cracks that have appeared in the very structure of her own family life. And then things really fall apart.

Kate seeks out a new life. She takes a train into her country’s interior, that vast, even now largely unknown hinterland where it is usually failure, not opportunity, that awaits. She becomes a barmaid in a back-of-beyond town that suffers chronic and regular flooding, and, sure enough, climatic disaster strikes again. A man called Jelly reckons that a hole blown through a railway embankment would relieve the town of its unwanted surfeit of water. Predicting the blast proves more difficult that setting it.

The plot wanders across country after explosive events. A large kangaroo and an emu travel in the party, on their way to a film set where they are cast in parts of a living national coat of arms. Kate thus travels again, but always pursued by her husband’s family lawyer, who wants her to sign away her rights, responsibilities and any presumed guilt.

When, later, abortive attempts at settlement have been attempted and come to nothing, Kate tries to take things into her own hands and seeks a settlement of her own. Her priest-uncle’s fate has taken its turns, as, she discovers, have the fortunes of the Kozinskys. While she has been bound up in the detail of her own life and its imaginings, fears and guilt, things outside of her direct experience have moved on. The world she rediscovers has changed. The landscape, though still unchanging ancient Australia, is now utterly different, offering new possibilities to new lives and even the opportunity to rewrite her personal history. Kate Gaffney thus explores the great inner sea of her country at the same time as navigating the tides of her own innermost fears. The journey, as ever, lands on new shores in old places.

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in New South Wales, we follow the trajectory of a young woman's grief from lush Sydney to the spare, unpopulated desert towns of back and beyond. Kate leaves behind a philandering husband, a beloved Irish uncle and supportive parents as she wallows in the ordinary lives of strangers to numb her pain. It is a sober, suspenseful story with some colorful homespun characters.

[Anne Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very powerful book though it took me around 50 pages to even start to enjoy it. The beginning was such a jumble of names, people and hints at things that have happened (or still happening) but too obscure for me to really gather an idea of the story, or like Kate, the heroine, or anyone else in the plot!
However, once she flees from Sydney the quality of the writing took over and the number of different people dropped. We were inside Kate's own head, meeting the strange, very different people in the town she chooses to run to, and learning a bit ab0ut life in inner Australia 'the land of the Inner Sea' (several millennia earlier, this barren landscape had been a sea inside the continent). The life there and the people are fascinating and Kate starts to understand truth and honesty. And thr0ugh this she starts to heal. In effect, their strightforwardness helps her reach into her own inner sea and make sense of it.

We so slowly learn her back story, though right up to the end we are half-guessing, prompted by more revelations, but offered so very slowly. The pace really picks up with the flood and its aftermath and the book became unputdownable for me. Right to the end....

I really loved reading about the very different characters she meets along the way (even Burnside) and grew fond of both Jelly and Gus. The connection with the animals is really well done - especially as the kangourou shows Kate herself and how she protects herself (along with most of priveledged society) with language that masks feelings.

I reread the end several times and i'm still not quite sure exactly what happened around the fire, which gave rise to such a huge financial offer to get rid of her. Maybe it is not necessary to know more than that people in power hang onto power by lying, twisting the truth and cheating.

By the end I was completely inside the world of Australian society in its very various manifestations. Fellow Australian Tim Winton is one of my very favorite authors and this book reminds me so much of how he draws his characters, the moodiness and silence that harbours so much pain that is hard to reveal and resolve.

[Jodie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A complex and difficult story with beautiful big round words. At times I just could not understand what he was saying, the language was so dense with words I could not make out the story. The images of Australia are lovely and desperate too, but that is the contrast of our land and of Kate.

Kate has suffered by being married to her despicable husband Paul, she has lost her children and is stricken with grief and guilt. She flees Sydney, feeling that the very earth of it is corrupt so she can no longer stay. She heads inland to what was once Australias inner sea to try and erase herself really. Poor Kate, she is constantly persued by disaster. Even though she builds some real relationships she ultimately is still unhappy and she does stay that way.

Interestingly Mr Keneally at times tells us up front what is about to happen, no foreshadowing at all, he just says it and then shows it. And even though you know what is going to happen you feel compelled to read the how of it. I liked that.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this a very well written and quite haunting read. The heroine suffered a huge shock and as a result went into a spiral of depression wanting to punish herself which I found quite upsetting but the things she went through were quite scary and also very upsetting and she dealt with them in her own unique way. I liked the outback Australian images and descriptions and could really picture the pub and its regulars. I could understand her bitterness and desire for revenge considering what she went through but some of her actions I found difficult to come to terms with.The characters were very real and so Australian that it could not have been set anywhere else in my view.

I have enjoyed some of his other books such as 'The chant of Jimmie Blacksmith' and 'Schinder's Ark' so was interested to read this and will read others if I come across them

[Paula Maguire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book a bit melodramatic and irritating. I didn't particularly like the writing style, with one character constantly called, 'The not quite so reverend Frank'. However I did finish it so some parts were interesting - when the woman, Kate, travelled into the outback and tried to loose herself in a small town. The blurb on the back says that is was a true story, but it doesn't ring true. Maybe, it's the author's lack of empathy with the main character or this reactions or non reactions she is given. Was unconvinced by her attachment to a kangaroo, or by her relationships with Jelly and Gus. Kept thinking that the story would be a metaphor for something profound, which is may be but I don't get it .

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas K has a way with words. He gives us the world of Kate who lives with her husband, a wealthy property developer, and two children. Tragedy strikes and Kate flees to northern NSW where she meets people who value friendship and community over money. There are no over the top characterisations of the Ozzie outback battler. The people are real, some are good, some are selfish and some just vicious.

The Catholic Church takes a hammering, and the book turns into a mystery, a story of revenge and finally a happy ending.

The book is written like a spoken tale, with a narrator speaking to the reader - or bookbuyer as the case is in this story.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very weird. On page 77, a woman suffers a family tragedy and runs away from home. She has a series of totally unbelievable adventures and on page 287 we find out what really happened.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was highly recommended by my wife and with good cause. It is a compelling story with a nice mix of psychological suspense, intrigue, and action. Many fine characters drawn such as Jelly, Gus, Uncle Frank, and Chifley the kangaroo, woven together by a heart-rending but all-too-believable narrative plot that is purportedly based on fact. My first exposure to Keneally's writing but surely not my last.

[Angie Reisetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going into this book, I thought it would be a little more earthy-spiritualistic than it really was, which is okay by me. It's about a woman who suffers a terrible loss, and runs away for a while, but eventually goes back and deals with her real life, discovering strength she did not previously have along the way. But it's not a wilderness story -- more of a small-town discovery story. She finds good people when she didn't expect to, and they help make her whole.

All in all a good read.

[Martha]

After many years I gave this novel a second reading and realized how this story is as much about the national character of Australia as it is about a woman dealing with tragedy and trying to leave herself behind. As an American reader I know I missed a lot of the nuance, but the story is a rich one that weaves a contemporary world with an ancient one and mixes the cruelty of people with their kindness in way that rings true.

[LyddieReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough novel to get through but amazing nonetheless. Didn't realize at first that he had also wrote Schindler's List, but it tracked-it was a very intense story. He has a way of introducing his characters in a very detached manner and almost secondary to the environment they find themselves in. In a nutshell, a very intimate portrayal of a woman's journey of escape and her eventual return where she finally finds redemption.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and would like to reread...
UPDATE: I finally found a copy of this book (the way I tracked down the book is a bit of a fairy tale in and if itself) and reread it. I know this book isn't for everyone, but I loved it.
To me it's a sad fairy tale. And I adore a sad fairy tale.