What do you think?
Rate this book
The Floating Garden
Sydney, Milsons Point, 1926. Entire streets are being demolished for the building of the Harbour Bridge. Ellis Gilbey, landlady by day, gardening writer by night, is set to lose everything. Only the faith in the book she's writing, and hopes for a garden of her own, stave off despair. As the tight-knit community splinters and her familiar world crumbles, Ellis relives her escape to the city at 16, landing in the unlikely care of self-styled theosophist Minerva Stranks. When artist Rennie Howarth knocks on her door seeking refuge from a stifling upper-class life and an abusive husband, Ellis glimpses a chance to fulfil her dreams. This beautiful novel evokes the hardships and the glories of Sydney's past and tells the little-known story of those made homeless to make way for the famous bridge. Peopled by bohemians and charlatans, earthy folk and fly-by-nighters, The Floating Garden is about shedding secrets, seizing second chances, and finding love among the ruins.
ebook
First published January 1, 2015
1 person is currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Emma Ashmere
7 books5 followersEmma Ashmere's short story collection DREAMS THEY FORGOT (Wakefield Press) is on the Sydney Morning Herald's 2020 Books To Read. "Ashmere's prose is precise, almost elusive, reading at times like poetry" BOOKS+PUBLISHING. Her short stories have been widely published & shortlisted including: Overland/NUW Fair Aust Prize, Newcastle Short Story Prize, Commonwealth Short Story Prize & longlisted Big Issue Fiction Edition & Heroines Prize. Her debut novel The Floating Garden was shortisted for the Small Press Network Book of the Year/MUBA 2016. She was born on Kaurna land in Adelaide South Australia, and lives on Bundjalung country in NSW. Emma (she/her) is on Instagram, Twitter and Mastadon.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 24, 2015
This is the debut novel by Emma Ashmere. It is set in Sydney in the 1920s, where the arches of the Harbour Bridge are still making their way through the air towards each other. Down below in Milson’s Point, a colony of misfits are losing their homes as construction proceeds.
The Floating Garden interweaves the stories of two women. Ellis is an eccentric who runs a boarding house for women and girls while Rennie is an artistic Englishwoman in an unhappy marriage. When Rennie plucks up the courage to leave her abusive husband, she finds a temporary home in Ellis’s guesthouse, which is about to be demolished.
Both women look to each other to provide security – Ellis needs money, while Rennie needs a bolt-hole to hide out from her husband. As her Milson’s Point home disintegrates, Ellis relives her escape to Sydney at the age of sixteen. Her unlikely saviour was the charismatic, scheming theosophist, Minerva Stranks. She also hints at a troubled liaison in the past with Minerva’s protégé, the fragile Kitty.
I loved so many things about this book, but the characters were especially delightful. Ellis has many secrets, not least of which is her anonymous authorship of a controversial gardening column under the name of Scribbly Gum. The flamboyant Rennie hails from a life of privilege and has a hard time adjusting to her new circumstances in the poorer part of town. Her effort to blend in and cope with her situation provides a subtle touch of humour. I also enjoyed learning more about theosophy – a spiritual belief system which was very popular in the 1920s.
An early review has compared this book to Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet and there certainly are some similarities. Both books explore the wider events in society through the lens of the people affected and both focus on a working class group of colourful individuals. Like Tim Winton, Emma Ashmere has a fine hand with exuberant Australian types.
The author has a PhD focusing on the use of marginalised histories in fiction and her novel does a superb job of bringing this fragment of our past to attention. The Floating Garden is a beautifully written, gently humorous and highly detailed slice of history. It also has an absorbing story-line which kept me turning the page.
The Floating Garden interweaves the stories of two women. Ellis is an eccentric who runs a boarding house for women and girls while Rennie is an artistic Englishwoman in an unhappy marriage. When Rennie plucks up the courage to leave her abusive husband, she finds a temporary home in Ellis’s guesthouse, which is about to be demolished.
Both women look to each other to provide security – Ellis needs money, while Rennie needs a bolt-hole to hide out from her husband. As her Milson’s Point home disintegrates, Ellis relives her escape to Sydney at the age of sixteen. Her unlikely saviour was the charismatic, scheming theosophist, Minerva Stranks. She also hints at a troubled liaison in the past with Minerva’s protégé, the fragile Kitty.
I loved so many things about this book, but the characters were especially delightful. Ellis has many secrets, not least of which is her anonymous authorship of a controversial gardening column under the name of Scribbly Gum. The flamboyant Rennie hails from a life of privilege and has a hard time adjusting to her new circumstances in the poorer part of town. Her effort to blend in and cope with her situation provides a subtle touch of humour. I also enjoyed learning more about theosophy – a spiritual belief system which was very popular in the 1920s.
An early review has compared this book to Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet and there certainly are some similarities. Both books explore the wider events in society through the lens of the people affected and both focus on a working class group of colourful individuals. Like Tim Winton, Emma Ashmere has a fine hand with exuberant Australian types.
The author has a PhD focusing on the use of marginalised histories in fiction and her novel does a superb job of bringing this fragment of our past to attention. The Floating Garden is a beautifully written, gently humorous and highly detailed slice of history. It also has an absorbing story-line which kept me turning the page.
July 27, 2015
The Floating Garden is a tale of two estranged women in the changing landscape of 1926 Sydney. This fine novel is set in a period of Australian history I knew little about. From the first page it was clear I was in the competent hands of a writer who had thoroughly immersed herself in the language and arts, the scandals and perils, of a society that lauded its coming of age with the vision of a bridge. Ashmere seeks out the lives beneath this fanfare, the poor who were living in the shadows, smoke and explosions of an industrial miracle that would soon span their harbour. They were hanging on ‘until they were prised out like oysters’.
Enter tobacco smoking Ellis the book’s staunch protagonist, and writer for a gardening almanac under the nom de plume, Scribbly Gum. I liked her already! And a world away, on the other side of Sydney Harbour, lives London exile and newly married Rennie, an artist and a romantic. Ellie and Rennie’s separate lives, past and present, weave through the book’s pages until the day they meet. Along the way the Theosophists, one of Australia’s less documented movements is also explored. An entertaining romp ensues into the mysteries of astral traveling, channeling and reincarnation peppered with the entrepreneurial ingenuity of some of the book’s shadier characters.
I will read The Floating Garden again, not just for its characters but for the pure pleasure and poetry of its language. There is a certain responsibility to the times in a work of historical fiction and Ashmere, through her deft use of dialogue and description, took me clattering down cobblestones into the damp of condemned boarding houses and dim lit salons; from the slippery gloved hands of society to the gossips of Ellis’ neighbor whose pink feather boa drags along behind her in the dust of Burton Street.
This exceptionally crafted book is also a revelation on how times do change and yet, they do not. The importance of community and the tragedy when it is lost is a lesson we still seem to be learning today. The authenticity of The Floating Garden as a work of historical fiction makes it doubly relevant. But most of all it is a song to the unknown lives of those who were turfed out from Milson's Point to make way for a bridge. The characters who inhabit its pages will, I have a feeling, live on in the imagination of readers long after the last page is turned.
Enter tobacco smoking Ellis the book’s staunch protagonist, and writer for a gardening almanac under the nom de plume, Scribbly Gum. I liked her already! And a world away, on the other side of Sydney Harbour, lives London exile and newly married Rennie, an artist and a romantic. Ellie and Rennie’s separate lives, past and present, weave through the book’s pages until the day they meet. Along the way the Theosophists, one of Australia’s less documented movements is also explored. An entertaining romp ensues into the mysteries of astral traveling, channeling and reincarnation peppered with the entrepreneurial ingenuity of some of the book’s shadier characters.
I will read The Floating Garden again, not just for its characters but for the pure pleasure and poetry of its language. There is a certain responsibility to the times in a work of historical fiction and Ashmere, through her deft use of dialogue and description, took me clattering down cobblestones into the damp of condemned boarding houses and dim lit salons; from the slippery gloved hands of society to the gossips of Ellis’ neighbor whose pink feather boa drags along behind her in the dust of Burton Street.
This exceptionally crafted book is also a revelation on how times do change and yet, they do not. The importance of community and the tragedy when it is lost is a lesson we still seem to be learning today. The authenticity of The Floating Garden as a work of historical fiction makes it doubly relevant. But most of all it is a song to the unknown lives of those who were turfed out from Milson's Point to make way for a bridge. The characters who inhabit its pages will, I have a feeling, live on in the imagination of readers long after the last page is turned.
November 19, 2016
It feels a bit as if I am late to the party in reviewing Emma Ashmere’s The Floating Garden because it was reviewed on release in 2015 by Sue at Whispering Gums and by Jessica White on her blog – but in fact I was very quick to buy a copy after I read about it first at Marilyn Brady’s Me, You and Books. It was partly that I was captivated by the cover art: it’s Dorrit Black’s ‘The Bridge’ (1930) which so brilliantly captures the subject matter of the novel: the irony of a bridge being built to unite two sides of a harbour while fracturing the lives of the communities displaced by the construction works.
What prompted me to read The Floating Garden now was the novel’s shortlisting for the MUBA (Most Under-rated Book Award). How has this happened?, I wondered, because I knew from the enthusiastic reviews that this is a highly intelligent book that people will love. It is beautifully written, it’s a perceptive character-driven novel, and it’s about an intriguing aspect of our national icon’s history.
Anyway, I’ve just spent two happy days savouring Emma Ashmere’s The Floating Garden and I loved reading it. It took no time at all for me to become invested in the leading character Ellis Gilbey, impecunious landlady of a crumbling terrace in Milson’s Point and anonymous author of a popular gardening column in a newspaper. Her house is literally crumbling: with each demolition explosion, more of the plaster falls and the shape of the house alters. Like other residents of this poor but close-knit community, Ellis is supposed to have moved out, but there’s a struggle for fair compensation, and Ellis can’t bring herself to start looking for somewhere new, especially not with her pitiful savings.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/11/19/t...
What prompted me to read The Floating Garden now was the novel’s shortlisting for the MUBA (Most Under-rated Book Award). How has this happened?, I wondered, because I knew from the enthusiastic reviews that this is a highly intelligent book that people will love. It is beautifully written, it’s a perceptive character-driven novel, and it’s about an intriguing aspect of our national icon’s history.
Anyway, I’ve just spent two happy days savouring Emma Ashmere’s The Floating Garden and I loved reading it. It took no time at all for me to become invested in the leading character Ellis Gilbey, impecunious landlady of a crumbling terrace in Milson’s Point and anonymous author of a popular gardening column in a newspaper. Her house is literally crumbling: with each demolition explosion, more of the plaster falls and the shape of the house alters. Like other residents of this poor but close-knit community, Ellis is supposed to have moved out, but there’s a struggle for fair compensation, and Ellis can’t bring herself to start looking for somewhere new, especially not with her pitiful savings.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/11/19/t...
April 21, 2015
What an original and inspiring new voice this wonderful novel has.
It is set in Sydney, in the 1920s, amongst the dust and rubble of the raising of the bridge.
Ellis is enigmatic, eccentric, lonely and yearning for a stable future as her house is in jeopardy due to the building works.
Her surroundings and companions are instantly engaging.
Her journey through the streets and amongst the politics and arts of the time is varied, humorous and inspiring.
It is a picture of who we Australians are and where we came from.
It is set in Sydney, in the 1920s, amongst the dust and rubble of the raising of the bridge.
Ellis is enigmatic, eccentric, lonely and yearning for a stable future as her house is in jeopardy due to the building works.
Her surroundings and companions are instantly engaging.
Her journey through the streets and amongst the politics and arts of the time is varied, humorous and inspiring.
It is a picture of who we Australians are and where we came from.
October 11, 2015
This novel's beautiful poetic language gives rich descriptions of a city in flux. I particularly like the way it takes in the layered lives of the underclass - all the characters come to life on the page. Art, politics, history, Arcadian dreams, love, and the esoteric are threaded delicately throughout, drawing the story along through the determination and resourcefulness of the women.
April 23, 2015
What a treat it was reading this book. I felt transported to a fascinating time in Sydney's history and was completely engaged by the narrative. Such intelligent, subtle, witty writing, and a wonderful heroine in Ellis. I adored Ellis and would have happily spent much more time in her company.
March 28, 2023
Hard to get into due to an unnecessarily complicated narration. Then for a while it intrigued me - a bohemian crowd in the middle of old Sydney. But then it was just downhill from the moment Rennie (a poorly developed character) became a ledger, to a completely nonsensical ending.
July 12, 2017
The cover for this novel is the well known painting by Dorrit Black of an uncompleted Sydney Harbour bridge. I have a photograph taken by my father with the same uncompleted arch. The Bridge is a Sydney icon now but this novel tells the story of people whose homes were destroyed by its construction. Just as Ruth Park did years ago for the people of Surrey Hills, so Emma Ashmore shows a warm sympathy for her struggling poor though they are not idealised.
Ellis is the main character and I particularly enjoyed the novel when events were seen through her eyes. Her back story is interesting and shows us aspects of Sydney life in the post World War One period. Ellis has run a boarding house for many years but it will now be demolished to make way for the bridge. She has once been in love with a young woman, Kitty, and when another young woman, Rennie, arrives on her doorstep escaping from an abusive husband, I expected that this would be a love affair that could lead Ellis out of the disillusionment of her life - but the writer gives us unexpected twists to lead to a surprising yet satisfying conclusion.
Ellis is the main character and I particularly enjoyed the novel when events were seen through her eyes. Her back story is interesting and shows us aspects of Sydney life in the post World War One period. Ellis has run a boarding house for many years but it will now be demolished to make way for the bridge. She has once been in love with a young woman, Kitty, and when another young woman, Rennie, arrives on her doorstep escaping from an abusive husband, I expected that this would be a love affair that could lead Ellis out of the disillusionment of her life - but the writer gives us unexpected twists to lead to a surprising yet satisfying conclusion.
December 22, 2023
I thought this would be interesting, set in Sydney (my favourite city) in the 20s (when my grandparents would have been around), at the start of the building of the bridge.
Sadly, I just could not get into it. I lost interest quite rapidly. I didn't think it worth persevering.
Sadly, I just could not get into it. I lost interest quite rapidly. I didn't think it worth persevering.
September 18, 2022
I enjoyed this story, set in Sydney in the early 20th Century. In fact I would have liked to continue to follow Ellis' story. And Rennie's too.
February 9, 2022
Starting with the positive: beautifully written, interesting characters & plot, great cover. But unfortunately I found it difficult to get into as it seemed to waver from themes of disruption of the bridge building, to social mores of the upper middle class, to domestic abuse, to everything else. Maybe too many themes? I found some plot aspects stretched credibility. And the ending left important things unresolved & trivial things too neatly tied up.
July 31, 2016
Loved all the historical detail in this book, especially its emphasis on working-class life in the 1920s. However, I took me a while to care about the characters, and the ending left me feeling things were a bit too neat (in some ways), and in another way, things were oddly unresolved, esp. regarding the character of Rennie.
August 30, 2016
Disappointed. I had expected a deeper story in relation to the people affected by the building of the Harbour Bridge, instead that was merely a lure to get me in!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews