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Painting the Light
Painting the Light is an expansive historical Australian novel and a touching and realistic love story set before, during and after WW2. It traces the journey of two young Australians whose experience of the war leads them to rejecting their conservative upbringing and embracing the aims of a fair deal for everyone.
Nell Hope’s dreams of becoming an artist are dashed when Hitler invades Poland. Her grazier father orders her home from Paris, and so she swaps her paint brush for riding boots.
Alec Murray’s loyalist instincts propel him to leave his farm in western NSW and enlist in the AIF to defend Britain against the impending Nazi threat.
They meet in the hyper-charged atmosphere of prewar Sydney and fall in love, but their courtship is cut short when war is declared. Alec is sent to the Middle East where his eyes are opened to a new world. Far from experiencing the romanticism of war as depicted in the art and literature of the day, Alec is confronted by the reality of its horrors. When he returns on leave after two years in Palestine and Greece, he is a changed man. He is determined that if he survives the war, he will do everything in his power to create a fairer and more equitable society. To his relief he finds a fellow traveller in Nell. They are hastily married before he is sent to PNG to fight the Japanese.
Nell discovers she is pregnant and faces the prospect of bringing a new baby into the world alone. Dreams of an artistic career seem long ago.
When Alec is finally demobbed, the couple begin a new life on his farm near Coonabarbran, NSW. He throws himself into local politics and starts to transform Coonabarabran by creating the kind of public utilities he saw in his travels.
Nell discovers she is pregnant again just at the time when Alec receives a call from Labor Party headquarters. A meeting with Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, results in him standing for the ALP in a safe Country Party seat. Their respective family and friends are horrified and turn their backs on the couple.
United in the fight to create a more equitable society and to bring rural Australia into the postwar world, Nell and Alec throw everything into the election. Soon they discover they are fighting against more than their Country Party opponents, but their love and loyalty to each other grow ever stronger.
Nell Hope’s dreams of becoming an artist are dashed when Hitler invades Poland. Her grazier father orders her home from Paris, and so she swaps her paint brush for riding boots.
Alec Murray’s loyalist instincts propel him to leave his farm in western NSW and enlist in the AIF to defend Britain against the impending Nazi threat.
They meet in the hyper-charged atmosphere of prewar Sydney and fall in love, but their courtship is cut short when war is declared. Alec is sent to the Middle East where his eyes are opened to a new world. Far from experiencing the romanticism of war as depicted in the art and literature of the day, Alec is confronted by the reality of its horrors. When he returns on leave after two years in Palestine and Greece, he is a changed man. He is determined that if he survives the war, he will do everything in his power to create a fairer and more equitable society. To his relief he finds a fellow traveller in Nell. They are hastily married before he is sent to PNG to fight the Japanese.
Nell discovers she is pregnant and faces the prospect of bringing a new baby into the world alone. Dreams of an artistic career seem long ago.
When Alec is finally demobbed, the couple begin a new life on his farm near Coonabarbran, NSW. He throws himself into local politics and starts to transform Coonabarabran by creating the kind of public utilities he saw in his travels.
Nell discovers she is pregnant again just at the time when Alec receives a call from Labor Party headquarters. A meeting with Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, results in him standing for the ALP in a safe Country Party seat. Their respective family and friends are horrified and turn their backs on the couple.
United in the fight to create a more equitable society and to bring rural Australia into the postwar world, Nell and Alec throw everything into the election. Soon they discover they are fighting against more than their Country Party opponents, but their love and loyalty to each other grow ever stronger.
338 pages, Paperback
Published May 4, 2022
About the author
Ned Manning
11 books2 followersNed Manning is a writer, actor, teacher.
He has just published his first novel, Painting the Light (Broadcast Books)
His non fiction book about the life of a teacher, Playground Duty, has become required reading for anyone interested in the profession.
His published plays include Alice Dreaming (Cambridge University Press); Luck of the Draw, Close to the Bone, Milo, Kenny's Coming Home and Us or Them (Currency Press).
Other plays are found at AustralianPlays.org
He has appeared in many Australian films and television shows including the cult hit movie, Dead End Drive In, Looking for Alibrandi, Bodyline, The Shiralee, The Farm, Aftershocks and, most recently,
Mr Inbetween.
He has just published his first novel, Painting the Light (Broadcast Books)
His non fiction book about the life of a teacher, Playground Duty, has become required reading for anyone interested in the profession.
His published plays include Alice Dreaming (Cambridge University Press); Luck of the Draw, Close to the Bone, Milo, Kenny's Coming Home and Us or Them (Currency Press).
Other plays are found at AustralianPlays.org
He has appeared in many Australian films and television shows including the cult hit movie, Dead End Drive In, Looking for Alibrandi, Bodyline, The Shiralee, The Farm, Aftershocks and, most recently,
Mr Inbetween.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 2, 2023
A heart rending tale of love and loss in the period preceding, during and after World War II. Nell is the beautiful and artistically talented daughter of a wealthy and socially prominent family in New South Wales. After getting into trouble multiple times in school in Australia, she persuades her parents to send her to finishing school in England, where she promptly gets herself expelled and decamps for Paris to become an artist!
Alec is the son of a slightly less wealthy and less socially prominent family in New South Wales who defies his overbearing father by refusing to become a prosecuting attorney and, instead, borrows money from his mother, who is the one with the money, to buy a sheep farm near Dubbo in far western NSW.
Alec and Nell first meet briefly when they are introduced by Nell's father who is favorably impressed by Alec's power of persuasion on his feet at a sheep grower's association meeting.
They next meet at a party at the new hot club in Sydney and things take off from there! She has been forced to leave Paris due to Hitler's advance. She has had to leave the life of her dreams and her first love, Gabriel, behind. Gabriel has made her aware of the iniquity and inequity of the world as he had to rush to Poland to try to save his Jewish parents.
Alec signs up to train for the reserve forces of Australia. His tent mate, Stephen, is the son of a conductor from Melbourne and is training to be one himself. He introduces Alec to literature he had never heard of and political views which are 180 degrees the opposite of those of his upbringing. He is so taken with Stephen's demeanor that he emulates him.
They end up being sent to the Mediterranean and country, by country make a name for themselves with all their successful military missions until the last one in Greece.
I don't want to go on with the story as it involves too many spoilers, but Ned Manning tells this tale with such detail about the battles in the Mediterranean that I feel like I really know what it was like for the first time!
Also, what it is like to be on a sheep farm, and especially, to be the wife of a sheep farmer left behind to manage the farm and take care of the babies.........and to be the wife of a politician left behind again as he campaigns.
Nell and Alec's idealism and feeling for their fellow man is truly one of the most amazing aspects of this story! They fight for their ideals tooth and nail. They cling to each other as best they can after the devastation of war and the fights they have to fight at home with their family and friends who view them as traitors to their class.
I could not put the book down....Ned is that good of a story teller.....and Nell and Alec, based loosely on his parents, have stayed with me and will stay with me.....
Alec is the son of a slightly less wealthy and less socially prominent family in New South Wales who defies his overbearing father by refusing to become a prosecuting attorney and, instead, borrows money from his mother, who is the one with the money, to buy a sheep farm near Dubbo in far western NSW.
Alec and Nell first meet briefly when they are introduced by Nell's father who is favorably impressed by Alec's power of persuasion on his feet at a sheep grower's association meeting.
They next meet at a party at the new hot club in Sydney and things take off from there! She has been forced to leave Paris due to Hitler's advance. She has had to leave the life of her dreams and her first love, Gabriel, behind. Gabriel has made her aware of the iniquity and inequity of the world as he had to rush to Poland to try to save his Jewish parents.
Alec signs up to train for the reserve forces of Australia. His tent mate, Stephen, is the son of a conductor from Melbourne and is training to be one himself. He introduces Alec to literature he had never heard of and political views which are 180 degrees the opposite of those of his upbringing. He is so taken with Stephen's demeanor that he emulates him.
They end up being sent to the Mediterranean and country, by country make a name for themselves with all their successful military missions until the last one in Greece.
I don't want to go on with the story as it involves too many spoilers, but Ned Manning tells this tale with such detail about the battles in the Mediterranean that I feel like I really know what it was like for the first time!
Also, what it is like to be on a sheep farm, and especially, to be the wife of a sheep farmer left behind to manage the farm and take care of the babies.........and to be the wife of a politician left behind again as he campaigns.
Nell and Alec's idealism and feeling for their fellow man is truly one of the most amazing aspects of this story! They fight for their ideals tooth and nail. They cling to each other as best they can after the devastation of war and the fights they have to fight at home with their family and friends who view them as traitors to their class.
I could not put the book down....Ned is that good of a story teller.....and Nell and Alec, based loosely on his parents, have stayed with me and will stay with me.....
Read
October 19, 2022Painting the light is a beautiful book that captures the trials and tribulations of love during wartime. As a student I found the characters to be complex and relatable and that many of the themes in the novel are still relevant to Australian experiences in the modern day. A story full of twists, turns, setbacks and pushes-forward, it is a pleasure to read.
Audrey
Audrey
October 21, 2022
Painting the Light is an evocation of an Australia-that-was, a political thriller, an engagement with the big themes of land and equality, and a love story to boot. Ned Manning expertly delivers a beautiful reading experience.
December 8, 2022
Ned Manning is not only a brilliant storyteller, he creates fully dimensional characters, and with the extra challenge of also authentically creating a version of Australia and the world in a very different time, pre war, and then at war. I felt like I was there and with characters I came to genuinely care about.
August 2, 2023
a nice historial story, set on the land in connabarabran - now important to us, and sydney , war time , racial, class and gender tension. well written . based on Neds parents. paperback, bought in paddington- sydneytown
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August 28, 2023Painting the Light (Paperback) by Ned Manning
I enjoyed reading about the political history of NSW and the struggles that a young couple in outback Australia encounter when you dare to go outside the box.
The ending left me driving down a long and dusty road, through the outback of Australia wondering what's next. They were heading to an uncertain future with 2 children and one on the way.
I enjoyed reading about the political history of NSW and the struggles that a young couple in outback Australia encounter when you dare to go outside the box.
The ending left me driving down a long and dusty road, through the outback of Australia wondering what's next. They were heading to an uncertain future with 2 children and one on the way.
July 12, 2022
Painting the Light is a story of love, politics and betrayal set against the vast backdrop of Coonabarabran NSW with glimpses of Sydney before, during and after WW11. It charts the course of Nell and Alec as they meet, fall in love, and are fundamentally changed by their wartime experiences. Ultimately it asks what cost we are prepared to pay for love and our political ideals?
New Manning is a master storyteller: political drama, meets love story, meets family saga.
New Manning is a master storyteller: political drama, meets love story, meets family saga.
Read
March 16, 2023Articulately written, with richly drawn characters and vivid imagery. It felt like Manning really captured that time in Australia (I'm too young to know what it was like, though). I loved the lack of sentimentality. Bad things are not romanticised.
So saying, I would have liked a more certain ending. I like things wrapped up neatly with everyone getting a happily ever after, because I'm a sentimental romantic.
So saying, I would have liked a more certain ending. I like things wrapped up neatly with everyone getting a happily ever after, because I'm a sentimental romantic.
September 29, 2024
Alec Murray and Nell Hope were both highly talented and handsome. Nell went to Paris as a painter but the war meant she had to return to Australia. She and Alec became engaged as WW2 broke out, where Alec served with distinction as an officer. Alec and Nell were delighted to settle in as a farmers on what seemed to be his own property, Toongowan, near Coonabarrabran, but his father seemed to have some sort of cotnrol over it . It needed a lot of work but they both loved it. Both were left leaning idealists and Alec was persuaded by Ben Chifley to stand for Labor, to the horror of their highly conservative rural community and families. At this stage I found both Alec and Nell were just too good to be true. Turns out Manning was writing about his parents whom he adored, which explains the goody-goody nature – so how true was all this? Alec did serve as a Labor politician for one term under Chifley and was accepted –at first. To say what happens would be a spoiler but the story doesn’t end well. The descriptions of war time, of rural Australia are very vivid in the 50s. We tend to idealize those times for those of us who can remember but there were dark forces, and anticommunism was bordering on paranoia, which Menzies deliberately stirred up.
September 1, 2023
Somehow Painting the Light manages to be an utterly effortless yet thought provoking read. Whilst there are well considered investigations of historical and contemporary concerns on almost every page, the book remains direct and conversational throughout.
From Coonabarabran to Sydney to Palestine then New Guinea and back, Ned Manning shows us a changing world through the lives of two charismatic idealists. Through their personal struggles we encounter questions of race, gender, politics and ecology. Manning writes with gentle sympathy, allowing his characters to achieve a dignity despite their failures and the cruelties dealt to them by fate.
If you are interested in Australian history and politics, you will love Painting the light.
If you have absolutely no interest in Australian history and politics, there is a good chance that you will love it anyway.
Relevant, real and unpretentious!
From Coonabarabran to Sydney to Palestine then New Guinea and back, Ned Manning shows us a changing world through the lives of two charismatic idealists. Through their personal struggles we encounter questions of race, gender, politics and ecology. Manning writes with gentle sympathy, allowing his characters to achieve a dignity despite their failures and the cruelties dealt to them by fate.
If you are interested in Australian history and politics, you will love Painting the light.
If you have absolutely no interest in Australian history and politics, there is a good chance that you will love it anyway.
Relevant, real and unpretentious!
September 9, 2023
Please don't waste your time . I am baffled at the good reviews of this book. I read the first half , a lot of words about nothing and then skimmed the last half just to finish as quickly as possible. It is the most boring book I have ever read .
January 17, 2024
Vivid descriptions of the harsh outback are the backdrop to this beautiful written story of love, loss and the human condition under the haze of war and conflict. Thoroughly enjoyed this read
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews