One of Australia's most celebrated writers, Kate Grenville, is the guest speaker at the Grand View Hotel's literary lunch on Tuesday, May 5, when she will talk about her new book One Life.
Grenville's bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. Her other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian's Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History.
When Kate Grenville's mother died she left behind many fragments of memoir.
These were the starting point for One Life, the story of a woman whose life spanned a century of tumult and change. In many ways Nance's story echoes that of many mothers and grandmothers, for whom the spectacular shifts of the 20th century offered a path to new freedoms and choices.
In other ways Nance was exceptional. In an era when women were expected to have no ambitions beyond the domestic, she ran successful businesses as a registered pharmacist, laid the bricks for the family home, and discovered her husband's secret life as a revolutionary.
One Life is an act of great imaginative sympathy, a daughter's intimate account of the patterns in her mother's life. It is a deeply moving homage by one of Australia's finest writers.
The Grand View Hotel's literary lunch begins at midday. The cost is $45pp (GV members $40) and includes a two-course lunch and a glass of wine on arrival. Bookings are essential; phone 3286 1002 or email reception@gvh.com.au
