Mrs. M, Luke Slattery
Mrs. M, Luke Slattery
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Mrs. M

Author: Luke Slattery

Narrator: Jennifer Vuletic

Unabridged: 9 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/16/2018

Categories: Fiction


Synopsis

From one of Australia's foremost journalists, Luke Slattery, comes a rich, intense novel of desire and dashed dreams, and one passionate, unforgettable woman - Elizabeth Macquarie. 'A richly evocative piece of historical fiction...beautifully written.' Good Weekend
Elizabeth Macquarie, widow of the disgraced former Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, is in mourning - not only for her husband, but the loss of their shared dream to transform the penal colony into a bright new world. Over the course of one long sleepless night on the windswept isle of Mull, she remembers her life in that wild and strange country; a revolution of ideas as dramatic as any in history; and her dangerous alliance with the brilliant, mercurial Francis Greenway, the colony's maverick architect. A stirring, provocative and thrilling novel of passion, ideas, reforming zeal and desire.'Moving, intricate novel ... Every love story has at its heart a vision of inherent human worth in the beloved; Slattery's achievement is to render, subtly and powerfully both a human love story, and a love story to the nation.' Anna Funder, author of All That I Am'A remarkable early 19th century heroine comes alive for us in this story: we share Mrs M.'s thoughts and feelings in almost uncanny fashion. Luke Slattery's debut sets new standards for the Australian historical novel.' Nicolas Rothwell'A richly evocative piece of historical fiction...beautifully written.' Good Weekend 'It is, at its core, the story of Slattery's most extraordinary creation: Mrs M, whose real-world counterpart was the wife of Lachlan Macquarie, fifth governor of the colony of New South Wales (1810-21). ... There is a kind of clarion certainty to her ... I think readers will be swept up by this creation. The narrative would grab me with moments of exquisite cadence and perfect emotional truth ... Told in Elizabeth's voice, and seen through her eyes, the sensuous descriptions of her Scotland and her Sydney - as well as her own inner world - rise off the page with a poet's perfect pitch.' The Australian'Saul Bellow says somewhere that in fiction sentences should be 'charged' - something should quietly beat through them. When one begins reading this is what you should listen for - imaginative confidence, a sense of sureness. This applies to historical fiction as much as any other. You don't ask, 'Is this true to history?' You ask 'Is this true to itself?' Luke Slattery's Mrs M is imaginatively true from beginning to end.' Barry Oakley

About Luke Slattery

Luke Slattery is a Sydney-based journalist, editor and columnist whose work appears in The Australian, The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review. Internationally he has been published at The New Yorker online, the LA Times, the International Herald Tribune, the UK Spectator, and the US Chronicle of Higher Education. Mrs M is his fifth book, and his first novel. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by PattyMacDotComma on July 03, 2018

4★ The author explains: “I have focused on a socially narrow stratum of early colonial Australia, and neglected the blood and the gore, the pain and the suffering, that became the dominant metaphor for colonial Australia. . . . I have attempted to say something true about Australian history, or at lea......more

Goodreads review by Kim on May 25, 2021

This is a fabulous historical fiction set in the early days of the NSW Colony and a fictionalisation from the point of view of Elizabeth Macquarie, the wife of one of the most prominent early Governor's of Australia, Lachlan Macquarie. The audiobook is beautiful narrated with a soft lilting Scottish......more

Goodreads review by Heather on March 03, 2018

A factionalized account of the life of Elizabeth Macquarie the story has insights into the life of the early settlement of Sydney Cove, and the devastating effects of the Big report on the reputation of Lachlan Macquarie. The relationship between Mrs M and The Architect ( Francis Greenway) I found a......more

Goodreads review by Amanda on July 03, 2019

I started reading this book thinking that it was going to be true to history and that it would give some insights to Elizabeth Macquarie’s character. Instead, the book turned into a historical romance, an ‘imagined history’, as explained in the author’s note. This approach had me questioning what wa......more

Goodreads review by Robin on November 04, 2017

I really liked this book. Governor Macquarie influence on the development of the colony in the early nineteenth was very interesting and made more so with the author’s fictional account of Mrs Macquarie’s relationship with the architect.......more