Bettany's Book
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Hodder & Stoughton
Published:21st Jun '01
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An enthralling novel from Thomas Keneally, set in Australia and the Sudan, and spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.
When Dimp Bettany, a Sydney film producer, comes into possession of her ancestor John Bettany's journals, she believes she has finally found the subject of her next masterpiece. Even her more detached sister Prim, an aid worker in the Sudan, becomes intrigued as the story unfolds of how John Bettany carved out a living in the wilds of New South Wales in the 1840s, and of the internment in the notorious Female Factory of Sarah Bernard, the convict woman he was destined to meet. As John's and Sarah's paths converge, each sister finds her life cast in a new and galvanising light.
Magnificent . . . a literary tour de force * Independent on Sunday *
A thumping big book teeming with energy . . . In a cast of vibrant protagonists, Prim is an exceptional heroine by any literary standards - the beating, human heart of a novel enriched by Keneally's charactistic, fiercely intelligent engagement with serious issues. * Literary Review *
A riveting and compendious account of the settlement of Australia by white convicts. It is a tremendous work, full of scholarship, adventure, drama and compassion * Daily Telegraph *
Thomas Keneally confronts the vast economic, cultural and historical distances between Australia and Africa, with a story that bridges them together convincingly . . . His complex new novel about what it means to be Australian should be read for decades to come. * The Times *
A work of towering authority: large in scope; rich in detail; overflowing with ripe humanity . . . more than an engrossing novel: it is a stirring one. * Sunday Telegraph *
A marvellously readable and powerfully moving skein of stories * TLS *
Like its subject, the novel is huge, magnificent * Mail on Sunday *
ISBN: 9780340624753
Dimensions: 198mm x 128mm x 37mm
Weight: 415g
608 pages