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The Trespassers
Fleeing their pandemic-stricken homelands, a shipload of migrant workers departs the UK, dreaming of a fresh start in prosperous Australia. For nine-year-old Cleary Sullivan, deaf for three years, the journey promises adventure and new friendships; for Glaswegian songstress Billie Galloway, it’s a chance to put a shameful mistake firmly behind her; while impoverished English schoolteacher Tom Garnett hopes to set his future on a brighter path. But when a crew member is found murdered and passengers start falling gravely ill, the Steadfast is plunged into chaos. Thrown together by chance, and each guarding their own secrets, Cleary, Billie and Tom join forces to survive the journey and its aftermath.
The Trespassers is a beguiling novel that explores the consequences of greed, the experience of exile, and the unlikely ways strangers can become the people we hold dear.
The Trespassers is a beguiling novel that explores the consequences of greed, the experience of exile, and the unlikely ways strangers can become the people we hold dear.
288 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2019
13 people are currently reading
445 people want to read
About the author
Meg Mundell
10 books37 followersBorn in NZ and based in Melbourne, Meg writes short stories, novels, journalism and memoir. Her second novel, THE TRESPASSERS (UQP), will be out in August 2019. Her first novel was BLACK GLASS (Scribe, 2011), and her debut short story collection is called THINGS I DID FOR MONEY (Scribe, 2013).
In October 2019, Affirm Press will publish WE ARE HERE: STORIES OF HOME, PLACE & BELONGING, a collection of writings by people who have experienced homelessness. Meg is the book's editor and manager of the project it sprang from, WE ARE HERE: WRITING PLACE (www.homelesswriting.org).
Meg's writing has appeared in Best Australian Stories, New Australian Stories, Australian Book Review, The Age, The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Big Issue, Eureka Street and other publications.
These days she works as a Research Fellow in Writing and Literature at Deakin University, and reads every night in order to avoid going stark raving mad.
In October 2019, Affirm Press will publish WE ARE HERE: STORIES OF HOME, PLACE & BELONGING, a collection of writings by people who have experienced homelessness. Meg is the book's editor and manager of the project it sprang from, WE ARE HERE: WRITING PLACE (www.homelesswriting.org).
Meg's writing has appeared in Best Australian Stories, New Australian Stories, Australian Book Review, The Age, The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Big Issue, Eureka Street and other publications.
These days she works as a Research Fellow in Writing and Literature at Deakin University, and reads every night in order to avoid going stark raving mad.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
August 25, 2019
I loved this fast-paced, tense story about refugees, xenophobia, fear and authority. Mundell creates a horrifyingly plausible near-future, with pandemics wracking Europe and ships ferrying the lucky few to a disease-free life in Australia as cheap labour. When a virus breaks out on the journey south, everything gradually starts to fall apart. The ways that hierarchies sharpen into focus and blur away during emergencies are brilliantly draw, as is the slow bubble of rumour and innuendo that drives wedges between the passengers. There are clear and deliberate parallels to Australia's outrageous treatment of refugees in this book and its a brilliant mix of plot and politics.
October 16, 2019
‘How did the captain know which way to sail?’
In this novel, set in the near future, a shipload of migrants is seeking a better future. These migrants, aboard the Steadfast, are seeking to leave overcrowded, disease-ridden countries in Europe, and are looking for a fresh start in prosperous Australia. Our window into the journey is via the points of view of three characters. Cleary Sullivan is nine years old, has been deaf for three years, and is travelling with his mother. Cleary is looking for adventure and new friendships. Billie Galloway, a Scots nurse assistant, is looking to put the past behind her, while English schoolteacher Tom Garnett is hoping for a brighter future. All the passengers have been subjected to rigorous health checks, so when a crew member is found murdered and passengers start falling dangerously ill, the Steadfast descends into chaos. Who killed the crew member? What is making passengers so ill, and can it be treated?
‘The facts point to commercial sabotage.’
The Steadfast becomes a modern plague ship, travelling though the ocean, unwanted. Cleary’s mother becomes ill: Cleary, Billie and Tom join forces. Who will survive? Will they find a place of safety?
This is a deeply unsettling novel. The near future of this fiction is (in slightly different forms) the current reality for many. We already have groups that are anti-migration, we already have island-sized patches of plastic choking our oceans and no-one needs to look too hard to find heartless politicians (who, distressingly, reflect a significant degree of public opinion). It’s not too difficult to believe that greed and inhumanity will (continue) to triumph.
How will it end? You’ll need to read it for yourself
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In this novel, set in the near future, a shipload of migrants is seeking a better future. These migrants, aboard the Steadfast, are seeking to leave overcrowded, disease-ridden countries in Europe, and are looking for a fresh start in prosperous Australia. Our window into the journey is via the points of view of three characters. Cleary Sullivan is nine years old, has been deaf for three years, and is travelling with his mother. Cleary is looking for adventure and new friendships. Billie Galloway, a Scots nurse assistant, is looking to put the past behind her, while English schoolteacher Tom Garnett is hoping for a brighter future. All the passengers have been subjected to rigorous health checks, so when a crew member is found murdered and passengers start falling dangerously ill, the Steadfast descends into chaos. Who killed the crew member? What is making passengers so ill, and can it be treated?
‘The facts point to commercial sabotage.’
The Steadfast becomes a modern plague ship, travelling though the ocean, unwanted. Cleary’s mother becomes ill: Cleary, Billie and Tom join forces. Who will survive? Will they find a place of safety?
This is a deeply unsettling novel. The near future of this fiction is (in slightly different forms) the current reality for many. We already have groups that are anti-migration, we already have island-sized patches of plastic choking our oceans and no-one needs to look too hard to find heartless politicians (who, distressingly, reflect a significant degree of public opinion). It’s not too difficult to believe that greed and inhumanity will (continue) to triumph.
How will it end? You’ll need to read it for yourself
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
March 9, 2020
Just finished Meg Mundell’s The Trespassers (UQP 2019), which I read obsessively and breathlessly in almost one sitting. Poignant, timely, compelling and bursting with meaning comparative with our current world, this is a fast-paced and tense crime novel, a well-crafted literary tale, and a heartfelt message of our times.
We are currently in the midst of the Corona Virus pandemic, and so it was surreal to begin reading this prescient story of a world set only a few years in the future, with a viral outbreak causing death and illness, shutting down whole countries’ economies, prompting divisive and hatred-filled finger-pointing, panic-buying and mass hysteria. It felt like life literally replicating as the art I was reading. That is the first amazing thing about this book – that it was published last year, and yet if anyone was to read it right now, today, they would be forgiven for thinking Meg Mundell had just penned this last night. It is scarily predictive and frighteningly familiar.
The story centres on three main characters and is narrated from their perspectives: nine-year-old Cleary, hoping for adventure; former nurse Billie who is running from her past; and schoolteacher Tom who yearns for a better life. All three are passengers on the Steadfast, a vessel loaded with migrant workers keen to flee the pandemic-stricken UK and to escape to a better life on the other side of the world, in Australia. The hundreds of passengers and crew have been bio-screened and virus-tested to ensure that none carry contagion. And although they know little about the circumstances of virtually indentured labour towards which they are heading, they feel confident it must be a better life than the situation that they are leaving.
But the long journey is interrupted early on with the suspicious death of a crew member, and soon afterwards, despite the many safety biohazard procedures and protocols in place, passengers begin falling sick. With everyone stuck on board the ship in the middle of the ocean, shunned by the world as a contagion carrier or even a floating death trap (again, sounding familiar?), law and order breaks down and chaos descends. As the secrecy, lies and coverups continue, Cleary, Billie and Tom are thrown together in unexpected ways, drawn towards each other even though they are strangers with very different backgrounds. No-one knows who to trust, and the authorities prove themselves time and again to be duplicitous and deceptive.
The second amazing thing about this book is the way it seamlessly morphs into an indictment of Australia’s own offshore detention centres – or in reality, our offshore prisons. I have only just read Behrouz Berchani’s No Friend But the Mountains, and the comparison between his real-life account of life on Manus Island and Meg Mundell’s account of a similar, if fictional, place, is astounding. If you have read one, I urge you to read the other. The other book that came to mind while reading this was Rohan Wilson’s Daughter of Bad Times – if you appreciated that novel’s depiction of money-hungry private corporations controlling the world’s labour, resources and production, patrolled by privately-funded military might, then The Trespassers will also resonate.
As it races towards its shocking conclusion, the novel becomes more and more nail-biting with every turn of the page. Without giving any spoilers, I can say that the ending asks more questions than it answers; while on one level it appears satisfying to a certain extent, on another level it leaves possibly sinister resounding echoes. It left me anxious and fearful.
The Trespassers includes themes of greed, global manipulation and control, migration and border security fears, exile, belonging, and the age-old search for a safe place to land. The messages in this novel, both overt and subtle, and the themes it addresses, are multilayered and complex. But they are brought into sharp focus by the spotlight on the main characters, who are well-drawn and defined, engaging and moving. This is a book filled with compassion and with wise questions about who we are as a country and as a global population, how far we would go in the face of fear and how deeply the roots of corruption and political and economic greed are spread. By confronting us with issues of corporate and nationalistic domination, and contempt for the most basic needs – food, shelter, medical care, security – it asks us all: where is our humanity?
We are currently in the midst of the Corona Virus pandemic, and so it was surreal to begin reading this prescient story of a world set only a few years in the future, with a viral outbreak causing death and illness, shutting down whole countries’ economies, prompting divisive and hatred-filled finger-pointing, panic-buying and mass hysteria. It felt like life literally replicating as the art I was reading. That is the first amazing thing about this book – that it was published last year, and yet if anyone was to read it right now, today, they would be forgiven for thinking Meg Mundell had just penned this last night. It is scarily predictive and frighteningly familiar.
The story centres on three main characters and is narrated from their perspectives: nine-year-old Cleary, hoping for adventure; former nurse Billie who is running from her past; and schoolteacher Tom who yearns for a better life. All three are passengers on the Steadfast, a vessel loaded with migrant workers keen to flee the pandemic-stricken UK and to escape to a better life on the other side of the world, in Australia. The hundreds of passengers and crew have been bio-screened and virus-tested to ensure that none carry contagion. And although they know little about the circumstances of virtually indentured labour towards which they are heading, they feel confident it must be a better life than the situation that they are leaving.
But the long journey is interrupted early on with the suspicious death of a crew member, and soon afterwards, despite the many safety biohazard procedures and protocols in place, passengers begin falling sick. With everyone stuck on board the ship in the middle of the ocean, shunned by the world as a contagion carrier or even a floating death trap (again, sounding familiar?), law and order breaks down and chaos descends. As the secrecy, lies and coverups continue, Cleary, Billie and Tom are thrown together in unexpected ways, drawn towards each other even though they are strangers with very different backgrounds. No-one knows who to trust, and the authorities prove themselves time and again to be duplicitous and deceptive.
The second amazing thing about this book is the way it seamlessly morphs into an indictment of Australia’s own offshore detention centres – or in reality, our offshore prisons. I have only just read Behrouz Berchani’s No Friend But the Mountains, and the comparison between his real-life account of life on Manus Island and Meg Mundell’s account of a similar, if fictional, place, is astounding. If you have read one, I urge you to read the other. The other book that came to mind while reading this was Rohan Wilson’s Daughter of Bad Times – if you appreciated that novel’s depiction of money-hungry private corporations controlling the world’s labour, resources and production, patrolled by privately-funded military might, then The Trespassers will also resonate.
As it races towards its shocking conclusion, the novel becomes more and more nail-biting with every turn of the page. Without giving any spoilers, I can say that the ending asks more questions than it answers; while on one level it appears satisfying to a certain extent, on another level it leaves possibly sinister resounding echoes. It left me anxious and fearful.
The Trespassers includes themes of greed, global manipulation and control, migration and border security fears, exile, belonging, and the age-old search for a safe place to land. The messages in this novel, both overt and subtle, and the themes it addresses, are multilayered and complex. But they are brought into sharp focus by the spotlight on the main characters, who are well-drawn and defined, engaging and moving. This is a book filled with compassion and with wise questions about who we are as a country and as a global population, how far we would go in the face of fear and how deeply the roots of corruption and political and economic greed are spread. By confronting us with issues of corporate and nationalistic domination, and contempt for the most basic needs – food, shelter, medical care, security – it asks us all: where is our humanity?
December 25, 2019
It's like Hitchcock reimagined Camus or Saramago. Paranoia, claustrophobia and murder on the high seas, underscored by social commentary on some very big issues in Australia and around the world. A really excellent, layered novel that is an absolute ripper to read.
August 27, 2019
I devoured The Trespassers.
Compelling, tense, urgent and so beautifully drawn. What a stunning thing.
Get into it.
Compelling, tense, urgent and so beautifully drawn. What a stunning thing.
Get into it.
October 31, 2019
I have thought of myself as a reader who doesn’t love speculative/dystopian fiction but so many books are proving me wrong. And here’s another. The Trespassers reads like a thriller and though I must admit I didn’t love the ending I could not put it down. A crowded ship of non-diseased Brits sets sail for disease-free Aus only for a breakout to occur on-board. There’s plot and there’s politics as Mundell draws parallels with our treatment of refugees. It all makes for compelling reading.
September 30, 2020
This book started out well, interesting characters and a strong story line. It started to fall apart when the ship makes it to Australia and they all languish onboard waiting for something in the plot to push the story on, then it finishes, rather abruptly with one character written out and only one character given voice to how he feels in the end. I was recently told by an author that the ending is a readers reward for their time commitment to their book. I didn’t get my reward with this book!
April 2, 2020
Set sometime in the near future there are some disturbing parallels to events and policies already occurring now. The story started off slowly, picked up speed in the middle, and then left me disappointed at the end.
September 21, 2019
After the last election, you could be forgiven for thinking that Australians don't care about anything that's important. Not about climate change, not about refugees, not about homelessness, older women adrift without a secure income, or the stinginess of Newstart. (And maybe not even embarrassed about our recent betrayal of small neighbouring countries in the Pacific though it's too soon to say). Electors were of course having to choose between a party that openly panders to the lowest common denominator, and a graceless party torn between being electable and having some kind of ethical stance. Not much of a choice, really.
But because I tend to like my fellow-Australians, I prefer to think that what look like mean-spirited choices happen because they are just busy, and too preoccupied (often by sport) to pay proper attention. Tired out at the end of the day and content to invest whatever energy is left in watching The Bachelorette or women's footy or some crime drama with or without guns. I'm like that too, when MasterChef is on. I'm on bypass for the entire season because the show starts at the same time as what passes for current affairs on the ABC. That kind of switching-off is very bad for democracy. But telling voters that they ought to pay attention so that they can make informed electoral choices is never going to work. One of the things we are most complacent about is democracy.
Which is partly why I think Meg Mundell's new book is so brilliant. The Trespassers is gripping reading, unputdownable from the first chapter, and inhabited by characters impossible to forget. The near-future in which the book set, is (rather like Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times) not really the future at all. The story's timeline is only a few decades away, but the events that propel it are already happening now. This novel will lure people into paying attention and they will love reading it even as it compels them to face unpalatable truths.
But because I tend to like my fellow-Australians, I prefer to think that what look like mean-spirited choices happen because they are just busy, and too preoccupied (often by sport) to pay proper attention. Tired out at the end of the day and content to invest whatever energy is left in watching The Bachelorette or women's footy or some crime drama with or without guns. I'm like that too, when MasterChef is on. I'm on bypass for the entire season because the show starts at the same time as what passes for current affairs on the ABC. That kind of switching-off is very bad for democracy. But telling voters that they ought to pay attention so that they can make informed electoral choices is never going to work. One of the things we are most complacent about is democracy.
Which is partly why I think Meg Mundell's new book is so brilliant. The Trespassers is gripping reading, unputdownable from the first chapter, and inhabited by characters impossible to forget. The near-future in which the book set, is (rather like Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times) not really the future at all. The story's timeline is only a few decades away, but the events that propel it are already happening now. This novel will lure people into paying attention and they will love reading it even as it compels them to face unpalatable truths.
September 7, 2019
Kept you interested but I thought the ending was a letdown. I was waiting for the lengthy passages on the boat to actually lead to some momentous event...but just more of the same.
April 1, 2020
Anticlimactic
October 7, 2020
'Meanwhile, the plague tolls ticked steadily upward, city by city, the length and breadth of our formerly united former kingdom...the home stream was awash with it: travel bans and curfews, airports virtually deserted, unrest in quarantine centres, gloomy soundbites from epidemiologists' (p15). Eerily prescient, The Trespassers is set in the near future (about 2030s) with a world reeling from a global pandemic. PPE, masks, hygiene, screening and sanitation are part of our daily discourse now but not when the novel was published in mid 2019. Almost the entire story takes place on a viral-laden ship taking 'escapees' (or scabs and deserters from the perspective of many homelanders) from post-Brexit Britain to Australia. The ironically named 'Steadfast' is the scene of crime, death and disease, despite all passengers and crew being thoroughly vetted for any pandemic symptoms before embarking. Part-thriller, mystery and crime fiction, The Trespassers also portrays the economic and social fall-out, from the global pandemic of its time, including poverty, xenophobia, and mistrust in political leadership. As well, climate change meets the ship literally as it sails by floating, melting icebergs.
The interweaving but separate stories of three characters constitute the narrative structure- Cleary, a 9 year old deaf boy accompanied by single mother, Cate; Tom, the teacher on the boat, likeable, lovely with kids but highly anxious and addicted to a stash of 'tabs' and nightcaps to dissolve worries; and Billie, a Glaswegian woman in her 30s, delightful singing voice but with a shadow over her past after she lost her hospital job. Like the others, Billie was heading to Australia for the promised work. '...she'd had a gutful of scrubbing floors and toilets for dirt rates'.
We learn that the Steadfast had originally been named Albatross, but in a marketing move that would make some current politicians proud, the burden of guilt and responsibility, is seemingly erased. But with all spin, the truth is never far below the surface - in the case of this story, that is the case literally and metaphorically.
Not all our characters will survive but to say would be spoiling the story. The Trespassers is well worth a read, particularly as a window on to our own times. Dystopian? or just realist?
The interweaving but separate stories of three characters constitute the narrative structure- Cleary, a 9 year old deaf boy accompanied by single mother, Cate; Tom, the teacher on the boat, likeable, lovely with kids but highly anxious and addicted to a stash of 'tabs' and nightcaps to dissolve worries; and Billie, a Glaswegian woman in her 30s, delightful singing voice but with a shadow over her past after she lost her hospital job. Like the others, Billie was heading to Australia for the promised work. '...she'd had a gutful of scrubbing floors and toilets for dirt rates'.
We learn that the Steadfast had originally been named Albatross, but in a marketing move that would make some current politicians proud, the burden of guilt and responsibility, is seemingly erased. But with all spin, the truth is never far below the surface - in the case of this story, that is the case literally and metaphorically.
Not all our characters will survive but to say would be spoiling the story. The Trespassers is well worth a read, particularly as a window on to our own times. Dystopian? or just realist?
October 13, 2019
Sometime in the near future, possibly mid-21st century, the characters of Mundell's stunning novel board a ship (the Steadfast) to take them to Australia from the UK. Hoping for better lives and escaping from the world's economic hardships, climate disasters, and feared pandemics, their journey on the raging sea threatens their very survival. The three main characters each have their own narratives: Cleary, the deaf Irish boy, travelling with his mother, who hopes to provide a better life for her son; Billie, who carries guilt from her former job; and Tom, a struggling teacher - interestingly, the only one whose story is told in the 1st person. The characterisations are skilful and immediately attract readers to their humanity, to their strengths and to their vulnerabilities.
As the crises aboard ship become complex and inescapably frightening, as disease spreads and their lives are threatened, the reader cannot help but draw parallels to the heart-wrenching stories of refugees trying to enter Australia and often being "imprisoned" by political red tape and, literally, by offshore detention. The commercialisation of immigration is another target in Mundell's sight, which exposes greed and corruption at the highest levels and treats these suffering refugees as commodities.
This is a beautifully written novel, perhaps too close to our present to be science fiction. The author's astute observations of human behaviour, especially in her building of close relationships between the three characters, deepen the impact of the story she tells and of the characters she creates. Throughout, she writes with anger about the "local vigilantes, attack drones dispatched by germophobes, on migrant-hating nationalists". There is no uncertainty as to her intention or target.
As the crises aboard ship become complex and inescapably frightening, as disease spreads and their lives are threatened, the reader cannot help but draw parallels to the heart-wrenching stories of refugees trying to enter Australia and often being "imprisoned" by political red tape and, literally, by offshore detention. The commercialisation of immigration is another target in Mundell's sight, which exposes greed and corruption at the highest levels and treats these suffering refugees as commodities.
This is a beautifully written novel, perhaps too close to our present to be science fiction. The author's astute observations of human behaviour, especially in her building of close relationships between the three characters, deepen the impact of the story she tells and of the characters she creates. Throughout, she writes with anger about the "local vigilantes, attack drones dispatched by germophobes, on migrant-hating nationalists". There is no uncertainty as to her intention or target.
December 8, 2021
This was a case of the parts not adding up to a satisfying whole. At the beginning, I was really intrigued by the idea of a near-future world in which a virus was running rampant. Of course I had to check the publication date: 2019, mere months before COVID would knock our planet down a few pegs. The author got a lot of things right--the masks, the constant "sanning" of hands (sanitizing), the generalized fear of anyone or anything carrying disease. There were also some interesting hints that climate change had already started to change life in substantial ways, such as ships being retrofitted with sails so they would use less fuel. Setting the novel on one such ship, full of refugees looking to escape the virus and find work, created a closed box setting worthy of any Agatha Christie mystery. So far, so good.
The three main characters the novel follows throughout the voyage are well-drawn, each with a distinctive voice, fears, and hopes. I wondered why Tom was written in 1st person and the other two were in 3rd person--this was never explained.
I started to lose interest about halfway through the book. The ship stops moving, and unfortunately, so does the plot. Reading about a lot of people waiting for something to happen is not as exciting as you would think. And then the ending . . . let's just say I felt really let down.
The book turns out to be not so much a science fiction tale as it is about immigration and economics. I think if that had been made more obvious from the beginning, the tale would have been more compelling. As it was, it felt like a bait-and-switch to me.
The three main characters the novel follows throughout the voyage are well-drawn, each with a distinctive voice, fears, and hopes. I wondered why Tom was written in 1st person and the other two were in 3rd person--this was never explained.
I started to lose interest about halfway through the book. The ship stops moving, and unfortunately, so does the plot. Reading about a lot of people waiting for something to happen is not as exciting as you would think. And then the ending . . . let's just say I felt really let down.
The book turns out to be not so much a science fiction tale as it is about immigration and economics. I think if that had been made more obvious from the beginning, the tale would have been more compelling. As it was, it felt like a bait-and-switch to me.
December 16, 2021
This was a case of the parts not adding up to a satisfying whole. At the beginning, I was really intrigued by the idea of a near-future world in which a virus was running rampant. Of course I had to check the publication date: 2019, mere months before COVID would knock our planet down a few pegs. The author got a lot of things right--the masks, the constant "sanning" of hands (sanitizing), the generalized fear of anyone or anything carrying disease. There were also some interesting hints that climate change had already started to change life in substantial ways, such as ships being retrofitted with sails so they would use less fuel. Setting the novel on one such ship, full of refugees looking to escape the virus and find work, created a closed box setting worthy of any Agatha Christie mystery. So far, so good.
The three main characters the novel follows throughout the voyage are well-drawn, each with a distinctive voice, fears, and hopes. I wondered why Tom was written in 1st person and the other two were in 3rd person--this was never explained.
I started to lose interest about halfway through the book. The ship stops moving, and unfortunately, so does the plot. Reading about a lot of people waiting for something to happen is not as exciting as you would think. And then the ending . . . let's just say I felt really let down.
The book turns out to be not so much a science fiction tale as it is about immigration and economics. I think if that had been made more obvious from the beginning, the tale would have been more compelling. As it was, it felt like a bait-and-switch to me.
The three main characters the novel follows throughout the voyage are well-drawn, each with a distinctive voice, fears, and hopes. I wondered why Tom was written in 1st person and the other two were in 3rd person--this was never explained.
I started to lose interest about halfway through the book. The ship stops moving, and unfortunately, so does the plot. Reading about a lot of people waiting for something to happen is not as exciting as you would think. And then the ending . . . let's just say I felt really let down.
The book turns out to be not so much a science fiction tale as it is about immigration and economics. I think if that had been made more obvious from the beginning, the tale would have been more compelling. As it was, it felt like a bait-and-switch to me.
April 30, 2020
This is a frighteningly believable and creepily prescient near-future account of forced migration, xenophobia and greed in a world gripped by a pandemic. With screen rights sold, this story is going to make a cracker of a film.
October 22, 2020
Thought provoking book about a disease that was affecting the world and the way it was for 3 characters on a boat to Australia. Confronting.
August 26, 2023
My sister recommended this book, as it was much talked about at her library. The first few chapters made me realize it is not the type of book, I would normally have chosen. But as I read further, I am happy I did.
A shipload of migrant workers are fleeing the pandemic stricken UK, for Australia. Written from then view-points of 9-year old Cleary, former nurse Billie and Tom a former teacher.
Eerily, this was written and published before coronavirus changed our world.
The similarities between our own pandemic regulations and those in the book are uncanny; as well as, the current plight of migrant workers and refugees in North America. And as always, the greed and corruption of large corporate world.
The twists in the last few chapters are unexpected.
A shipload of migrant workers are fleeing the pandemic stricken UK, for Australia. Written from then view-points of 9-year old Cleary, former nurse Billie and Tom a former teacher.
Eerily, this was written and published before coronavirus changed our world.
The similarities between our own pandemic regulations and those in the book are uncanny; as well as, the current plight of migrant workers and refugees in North America. And as always, the greed and corruption of large corporate world.
The twists in the last few chapters are unexpected.
March 21, 2024
Beautifully written A thrilling novel
December 24, 2020
A ship load of workers flees a pandemic-stricken UK headed for jobs and a fresh start in Australia. Despites strict scans, sanitization and screening prior to departure, three weeks into the voyage people begin to fall ill. The story is told through the eyes of nine-year-old Cleary, a deaf boy travelling with his mother; Tom a gay school teacher; and Billie, a former nurse.
Disease, murder and chaos as this page turning novel explores issues of migration and exile, and the race to expose the truth.
This is a prescient book, written by a Melbourne based author and published in 2019 - an interesting book to read in 2020 - the year of the COVID-19 plague.
Disease, murder and chaos as this page turning novel explores issues of migration and exile, and the race to expose the truth.
This is a prescient book, written by a Melbourne based author and published in 2019 - an interesting book to read in 2020 - the year of the COVID-19 plague.
February 5, 2020
A gripping dystopian story that was terrifying to read as the world currently deals with the coronavirus. I loved the way the author left many aspects of the story, particularly the events that led to people migrating to Australia, somewhat ambiguous, leaving the reader to come to their own conclusions. For this reason, when you finish, you’ll want to talk to someone who has also read the book!
November 22, 2019
So disappointing. 1 dimensional characters and a story that took forever to unfold.
November 29, 2021
3 1/2 rounded up as it was very well written, edited, and rhythm and pace were also good. Not my favourite genre and a couple of minor quibbles, re word choices. Read it all.
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August 2, 2020Meg Mundell’s The Trespassers
Meg Mundell’s debut novel Black Glass was set in a dystopian surveillance state and garnered amongst other accolades and Aurelius short listing. So it’s no surprise to find ourselves in The Trespassers sailing through the realms of speculative fiction.
We begin with passengers boarding The Steadfast. From across the UK these people have jealously guarded their clean bill of health to leave England’s shores in search of work in Australia. Protesters line the docks denouncing the men, women and children as traitors for abandoning the infected country. On board the ship the passengers settle in for the month long journey to Australia; dreaming of the possibility that awaits them in this new and healthy land.
All proceeds with interminable regularity until a crew member is found murdered in the early dawn. The only witness is a young boy silenced by fear...
And then passengers begin falling ill...
The Trespassers is a veritable pinata of near future social collapse. The passengers on board the Steadfast are fleeing a country ravaged by biological hazard and virulent disease, they are held at the mercy of corporate interests for whom they are merely chattel and subject to a globalised world that is seeking to reassert national boundaries out of fear and safety.
As speculative fiction goes; we’re really only one superbug away from having The Trespassers on the daily headlines. It’s a risky narrative move, because this could so easily have devolved into an issues book with some strong lefty flex.
The brilliance of The Trespassers is that it drops us into the ocean and cuts off all communication with the world. We’re aware that the eternal battle between left and right is going on somewhere in the background, but as we see disease spread through the boat it becomes the human equation that grips and ultimately guides our sensibilities.
The story is told through three characters points of view. Cleary is the young boy travelling with his mother. He has a hearing impairment from an early illness that has given him a secret language he shares with his mother but limited means to communicate with others who do not credit his intelligence.
Tom is a young teacher wracked with guilt at leaving his family but yearning for the freedom of a land where he can live and work and not have to hide his true self.
Billie is a nurse escaping her past. A beautiful singing voice endears her to the crowd but her history with the disease ensures she is thrown into the heart of the trauma as the boat falls ill.
Moving between each of these points of view we become privy to the expanse as well as the confinement of a ship at sea. While Tom struggles to find a quiet space to tryst with a handsome crew member, Cleary must surreptitiously mark corridors with coloured tape to remember his way safely. Their stories become bound up in our hope for the novel’s outcomes and so we are primed for disaster.
When the sickness hits the tone moves into horror movie territory. Billie shows us the overwhelming hopelessness of fighting a virulent disease with no equipment as Tom and Cleary’s mother slowly waste away. With face masks protecting wary passengers from airborne germs Cleary is cut off from what lip-reading he could manage and is alone.
Here Mundell works to juggle a range of genres as we reel at the horror while facing both the mystery of the murder and the mounting political tension of who will accept this ship at port?
Across three acts The Trespassers surges through questions of what it means to be unwanted by the world and how these issues are so much broader than, yet also as banal as political expediency.
Leaving aside later revelations as the territory of spoilers, I feel safe in saying that Mundell wants to engage us as readers in the questions gripping our country and its responsibilities in the world. That she’s wrapped it up in a gripping genre hopping mystery makes it all the more enjoyable!
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Meg Mundell’s debut novel Black Glass was set in a dystopian surveillance state and garnered amongst other accolades and Aurelius short listing. So it’s no surprise to find ourselves in The Trespassers sailing through the realms of speculative fiction.
We begin with passengers boarding The Steadfast. From across the UK these people have jealously guarded their clean bill of health to leave England’s shores in search of work in Australia. Protesters line the docks denouncing the men, women and children as traitors for abandoning the infected country. On board the ship the passengers settle in for the month long journey to Australia; dreaming of the possibility that awaits them in this new and healthy land.
All proceeds with interminable regularity until a crew member is found murdered in the early dawn. The only witness is a young boy silenced by fear...
And then passengers begin falling ill...
The Trespassers is a veritable pinata of near future social collapse. The passengers on board the Steadfast are fleeing a country ravaged by biological hazard and virulent disease, they are held at the mercy of corporate interests for whom they are merely chattel and subject to a globalised world that is seeking to reassert national boundaries out of fear and safety.
As speculative fiction goes; we’re really only one superbug away from having The Trespassers on the daily headlines. It’s a risky narrative move, because this could so easily have devolved into an issues book with some strong lefty flex.
The brilliance of The Trespassers is that it drops us into the ocean and cuts off all communication with the world. We’re aware that the eternal battle between left and right is going on somewhere in the background, but as we see disease spread through the boat it becomes the human equation that grips and ultimately guides our sensibilities.
The story is told through three characters points of view. Cleary is the young boy travelling with his mother. He has a hearing impairment from an early illness that has given him a secret language he shares with his mother but limited means to communicate with others who do not credit his intelligence.
Tom is a young teacher wracked with guilt at leaving his family but yearning for the freedom of a land where he can live and work and not have to hide his true self.
Billie is a nurse escaping her past. A beautiful singing voice endears her to the crowd but her history with the disease ensures she is thrown into the heart of the trauma as the boat falls ill.
Moving between each of these points of view we become privy to the expanse as well as the confinement of a ship at sea. While Tom struggles to find a quiet space to tryst with a handsome crew member, Cleary must surreptitiously mark corridors with coloured tape to remember his way safely. Their stories become bound up in our hope for the novel’s outcomes and so we are primed for disaster.
When the sickness hits the tone moves into horror movie territory. Billie shows us the overwhelming hopelessness of fighting a virulent disease with no equipment as Tom and Cleary’s mother slowly waste away. With face masks protecting wary passengers from airborne germs Cleary is cut off from what lip-reading he could manage and is alone.
Here Mundell works to juggle a range of genres as we reel at the horror while facing both the mystery of the murder and the mounting political tension of who will accept this ship at port?
Across three acts The Trespassers surges through questions of what it means to be unwanted by the world and how these issues are so much broader than, yet also as banal as political expediency.
Leaving aside later revelations as the territory of spoilers, I feel safe in saying that Mundell wants to engage us as readers in the questions gripping our country and its responsibilities in the world. That she’s wrapped it up in a gripping genre hopping mystery makes it all the more enjoyable!
Loved this review?
You can get more books, writing and literary culture every week on the Final Draft Great Conversations podcast. Hear interviews with authors and discover your next favourite read!
https://player.whooshkaa.com/shows/2s...
October 1, 2020
Meg Mundell’s debut novel, Black Glass immediately made her an author to watch with her dark eye cast on characters who live at the margins of a society not quite like the one we are currently living in, but a more disturbing version.
The same is true of The Trespassers, set in the not too distant future. The British Isles have succumbed to a new plague that is killing people in their thousands. The story follows the fate of a boatload of economic refugees from Britain who are heading to Australia for a new life filled with the promise of a relatively pristine environment and viable work opportunities. Each has been screened and scrutinised over many months to ensure they are disease free and fit, emotionally and physically, to be accepted for the journey.
Once they are on the open seas, they fling off their mandatory masks ready to face a future with brighter prospects, eager to leave their bleak lives behind. Except, one by one, passengers and crew start falling sick. None of the medically trained staff have seen this virus before but there are clues as to where it may have come from. And who is responsible.
The story unfolds through the eyes of a 9-year-old Cleary, who is deaf, Scottish nurses’ aide Billy, and school teacher Tom. Each holds a piece of the puzzle but it soon becomes evident that knowing the truth is sometimes more dangerous than living in blind hope of a better future.
It is impossible to make this story sound upbeat because it isn’t. But what carries The Trespassers is Mundell’s exquisite writing and her ability to bury herself deep within the characters and make their stories live. She paints a bleak picture of our future and taps into our worse fears and there is nothing wrong with that. Not all novels need to be uplifting, especially in these times when so many of us feel the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Sometimes to be left unsettled by a novel is exactly the right outcome and The Trespassers is definitely in this category. It is a chilling read, mostly because everything on the page feels entirely plausible and very imminent.
The same is true of The Trespassers, set in the not too distant future. The British Isles have succumbed to a new plague that is killing people in their thousands. The story follows the fate of a boatload of economic refugees from Britain who are heading to Australia for a new life filled with the promise of a relatively pristine environment and viable work opportunities. Each has been screened and scrutinised over many months to ensure they are disease free and fit, emotionally and physically, to be accepted for the journey.
Once they are on the open seas, they fling off their mandatory masks ready to face a future with brighter prospects, eager to leave their bleak lives behind. Except, one by one, passengers and crew start falling sick. None of the medically trained staff have seen this virus before but there are clues as to where it may have come from. And who is responsible.
The story unfolds through the eyes of a 9-year-old Cleary, who is deaf, Scottish nurses’ aide Billy, and school teacher Tom. Each holds a piece of the puzzle but it soon becomes evident that knowing the truth is sometimes more dangerous than living in blind hope of a better future.
It is impossible to make this story sound upbeat because it isn’t. But what carries The Trespassers is Mundell’s exquisite writing and her ability to bury herself deep within the characters and make their stories live. She paints a bleak picture of our future and taps into our worse fears and there is nothing wrong with that. Not all novels need to be uplifting, especially in these times when so many of us feel the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Sometimes to be left unsettled by a novel is exactly the right outcome and The Trespassers is definitely in this category. It is a chilling read, mostly because everything on the page feels entirely plausible and very imminent.
April 25, 2020
We begin with our three protags - a group of economic migrants from the UK headed to Australia in search of a better life (and in order to escape a spreading pandemic) - boarding a boat. We're immersed in the bodies, the desperation, the suffocating pressure of respirators, the paranoia. And soon after the early setup of we get our first major complications.
1) sickness on board
2) a murder.
These two developments sunk their claws into me immediately. Why? Because a) a sickness spreading in a closed environment is a classic crucible setup - terrifying and inescapable, and b) the murder is witnessed by a POV character who is unable to tell anyone what he saw. The narration is structured in a 3rd-person-close POV that gets so deep into the main character's heads that you can't help but love them and fear for them with every page. And with these dual threats rising, rising, rising, there really isn't any space to breathe. You become completely invested in the littlest actions, the smallest ways of touching or moving or eating something that could potentially spread the sickness. It gets inside your head to a degree I didn't anticipate.
Meg Mundell explores the indifference of government to the suffering of people in need, as well as the callousness of big corps when it comes to managing a pandemic situation. The true mystery at the heart of THE TRESPASSERS (which I won't spoil) is primarily one of profiteering from the misery of desperate people. This is something we're witnessing right now, in 2020, as businesses, megacorps and individuals rush to control, manipulate, and wring every extra buck out of the suffering of hundreds of thousands.
THE TRESPASSERS left me hurting.
It left me angry.
Ultimately, it's a brilliant book. Impossibly timely, tightly researched, emotionally exhausting and unabashedly political. Put in in the pile with THE STAND, STATION ELEVEN, THE WANDERERS, LOCK-IN, and more. It's necessary, now more than ever.
1) sickness on board
2) a murder.
These two developments sunk their claws into me immediately. Why? Because a) a sickness spreading in a closed environment is a classic crucible setup - terrifying and inescapable, and b) the murder is witnessed by a POV character who is unable to tell anyone what he saw. The narration is structured in a 3rd-person-close POV that gets so deep into the main character's heads that you can't help but love them and fear for them with every page. And with these dual threats rising, rising, rising, there really isn't any space to breathe. You become completely invested in the littlest actions, the smallest ways of touching or moving or eating something that could potentially spread the sickness. It gets inside your head to a degree I didn't anticipate.
Meg Mundell explores the indifference of government to the suffering of people in need, as well as the callousness of big corps when it comes to managing a pandemic situation. The true mystery at the heart of THE TRESPASSERS (which I won't spoil) is primarily one of profiteering from the misery of desperate people. This is something we're witnessing right now, in 2020, as businesses, megacorps and individuals rush to control, manipulate, and wring every extra buck out of the suffering of hundreds of thousands.
THE TRESPASSERS left me hurting.
It left me angry.
Ultimately, it's a brilliant book. Impossibly timely, tightly researched, emotionally exhausting and unabashedly political. Put in in the pile with THE STAND, STATION ELEVEN, THE WANDERERS, LOCK-IN, and more. It's necessary, now more than ever.
June 15, 2021
The Trespassers by Meg Mundell
An entertaining little thriller set in a future in which climate change, an energy crisis, and a global pandemic throw the world askew. Mundell has used this conceit to explore notions of emigration, xenophobia, corporate greed, political cowardice and capitalism run rampant.
The narrative unwinds through three distinctive voices: a formidable (but bruised) Glaswegian nurse-turned nightclub singer; the reserved English schoolteacher from a family fallen from wealth; and a deaf nine-year-old Irish lad cut adrift with just his mother by his side.
I can't say that each character thoroughly convinced me, but the occasional jarring of inauthenticity did not hinder the story from moving along briskly. More jolting was a considerable shift from a claustrophobic murder mystery novel set at sea to a more nebulous political thriller.
As I said, I liked it well enough, and I am always keen to read a sharp critique of Australia's treatment of refugees. One hopes that in choosing a cohort - Scots, Irish and English - more likely to draw sympathy from white Australia, they might open their eyes to the cruelty of the present system that primarily impacts strange and alien 'others'.
While the narrative arc was entirely sensible, the abrupt ending seemed rushed and unsatisfying. Given the intensity of the build-up, I had hoped for something more.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2
An entertaining little thriller set in a future in which climate change, an energy crisis, and a global pandemic throw the world askew. Mundell has used this conceit to explore notions of emigration, xenophobia, corporate greed, political cowardice and capitalism run rampant.
The narrative unwinds through three distinctive voices: a formidable (but bruised) Glaswegian nurse-turned nightclub singer; the reserved English schoolteacher from a family fallen from wealth; and a deaf nine-year-old Irish lad cut adrift with just his mother by his side.
I can't say that each character thoroughly convinced me, but the occasional jarring of inauthenticity did not hinder the story from moving along briskly. More jolting was a considerable shift from a claustrophobic murder mystery novel set at sea to a more nebulous political thriller.
As I said, I liked it well enough, and I am always keen to read a sharp critique of Australia's treatment of refugees. One hopes that in choosing a cohort - Scots, Irish and English - more likely to draw sympathy from white Australia, they might open their eyes to the cruelty of the present system that primarily impacts strange and alien 'others'.
While the narrative arc was entirely sensible, the abrupt ending seemed rushed and unsatisfying. Given the intensity of the build-up, I had hoped for something more.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2
September 3, 2020
(3.5 stars)
"Meanwhile the plague tolls ticked steadily upward, city by city, the length and breadth of our formerly united former kingdom, from Brighton to Inverness, Cork to Londonderry. The home stream was awash with it: travel bans and curfews, airports virtually deserted, unrest in quarantine centres, gloomy soundbites from epidemiologists." For readers today, The Trespassers will looks somewhat presient as it discusses hand santitising regimes and "germophobe nutters who wanted to ban all travel, all migration, as if that was any kind of solution". These are the very debates we are having in Australia right now. However, when the novel was published a year ago, it was a piece of dystopian, speculative fiction set in a world not too far in the future.
The narrative revolves around a virus brought to Australia by boat, in the midst of a pandemic. Author Meg Mundell weaves in other social justice issues Australia struggles with—migrant workers, immigration, and human rights in indefinite offshore detention—quite artfully. Mundell also touches upon the way that mask-wearing impacts deaf people: "Mouths concealed, speech erased, words buried by white masks." However the latter is a poorly developed idea that it would have been nice if the book had returned to flesh out in greater detail, particularly as one of the three main protagonists, Cleary Sullivan, is a deaf nine-year-old boy.
While the start of the novel is taut and compelling, it peters away at the rear, which in part is because the key characters are in indefinite offshore detention. It's worth a look anyway, because the echos of COVID-19 are hard to ignore: "mask on, san your hands. Don't touch your eyes, nose, mouth. Don't get too close to other people. Wave the screens, no contact. Avoid touching doorknobs, handrails, taps. Guard your water bottle, be careful at mealtimes: fresh gloves, clean cutlery, mask back on the second you finish eating." Words to live by in 2020.
"Meanwhile the plague tolls ticked steadily upward, city by city, the length and breadth of our formerly united former kingdom, from Brighton to Inverness, Cork to Londonderry. The home stream was awash with it: travel bans and curfews, airports virtually deserted, unrest in quarantine centres, gloomy soundbites from epidemiologists." For readers today, The Trespassers will looks somewhat presient as it discusses hand santitising regimes and "germophobe nutters who wanted to ban all travel, all migration, as if that was any kind of solution". These are the very debates we are having in Australia right now. However, when the novel was published a year ago, it was a piece of dystopian, speculative fiction set in a world not too far in the future.
The narrative revolves around a virus brought to Australia by boat, in the midst of a pandemic. Author Meg Mundell weaves in other social justice issues Australia struggles with—migrant workers, immigration, and human rights in indefinite offshore detention—quite artfully. Mundell also touches upon the way that mask-wearing impacts deaf people: "Mouths concealed, speech erased, words buried by white masks." However the latter is a poorly developed idea that it would have been nice if the book had returned to flesh out in greater detail, particularly as one of the three main protagonists, Cleary Sullivan, is a deaf nine-year-old boy.
While the start of the novel is taut and compelling, it peters away at the rear, which in part is because the key characters are in indefinite offshore detention. It's worth a look anyway, because the echos of COVID-19 are hard to ignore: "mask on, san your hands. Don't touch your eyes, nose, mouth. Don't get too close to other people. Wave the screens, no contact. Avoid touching doorknobs, handrails, taps. Guard your water bottle, be careful at mealtimes: fresh gloves, clean cutlery, mask back on the second you finish eating." Words to live by in 2020.
January 17, 2022
In roughly 2060, the United Kingdom has been ravaged by disease and unemployment rates are sky high. A ship load of struggling citizens sign up to travel to Australia, after careful health vetting, with the promise of employment at the other end. Cleary is a young boy traveling with his single mother. Billie worked in the hospital death wards before losing her job. Tom is a struggling young teacher. Three weeks into their journey, a crew member is violently murdered and soon after passengers start dying of a mysterious disease.
I expected to really enjoy this. I love a good dystopian novel and sympathise with the plight of refugees (which was the unspoken parallel of the story). But I struggled to connect to the characters, and therefore found it a little dull. And, having lived through a pandemic, the premise that Australia would be disease free while other countries deal with mass illness and death just doesn't ring true.
2.5 stars rounded up
I expected to really enjoy this. I love a good dystopian novel and sympathise with the plight of refugees (which was the unspoken parallel of the story). But I struggled to connect to the characters, and therefore found it a little dull. And, having lived through a pandemic, the premise that Australia would be disease free while other countries deal with mass illness and death just doesn't ring true.
2.5 stars rounded up
January 7, 2023
The start of The Trespassers was very strong, filled with mystery, intrigue, and a foreboding atmosphere. It's told in three alternating perspectives--Cleary, a deaf child, Billie, a Scot nurse (?), and Tom, a teacher. They are all passengers on The Steadfast trying to escape a pandemic which, much to their dismay, has made its way onto the ship. Reading this now after COVID, some of the parallels are quite frightening. We even had an incident here in Japan where COVID broke out on a cruise ship near the start of the pandemic, and it was almost all I could think about while reading this book.
But I digress. The Trespassers had a great concept, strong prose, and interesting characters. Unfortunately, it fell apart for me in the second half of the book and I had lost a lot of interest by the ending. Still, I can't write it off completely and would be interested in reading more by Mundell in the future.
But I digress. The Trespassers had a great concept, strong prose, and interesting characters. Unfortunately, it fell apart for me in the second half of the book and I had lost a lot of interest by the ending. Still, I can't write it off completely and would be interested in reading more by Mundell in the future.
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