Sunday 30 October 2016

Off to Australia (not me, this time!)

This is my final post about the research that has gone into the new novel. (Yes, a novel - a bit of a change from the travel writing, but no less of a journey.)

The previous posts have seen my protagonist escape the famine in Ireland and sink into the squalor of Liverpool's Irish slums. And we know she died in New Zealand. In between, she spent time in Australia.

So here I had a problem. I've spent just three weeks in Eastern Australia, and - at the time - was more interested in learning about aboriginal history than the early European settlers. Which left me no choice but to wallow in books.

I learned about the challenges faced by the early deportees - and what impressed me most was the way they soon established a rule of law. At home they were labelled at criminals, but most were  driven to theft by poverty. With the opportunity to co-operate, in order to provide a safe space to provide for their basic needs, they flourished. There was the odd vagabond, of course, and some (like Ned Kelly) have achieved cult status; but most settled into respectability.

However, I know we cannot ignore their deplorable treatment of indigenous peoples. The ripples of these early years still ruffle Australia today. History provides reasons (ignorance, the tendency of one group to look down on another) but that can never make it right.

Then came the gold rush. Which brought a whole new influx of people, driven by the lure of adventure and the prospect of riches. And it transformed the lives of many of those early settlers.

So, that, I thought, gave me all the background I needed. Until I checked the dates of the deportations ... And discovered that by the time my protagonist must have left Liverpool the only place in Australia that still accepted felons was on the west coast - thousands of miles across the desert. I've not been there, nor had I read about it. It was the biggest of my 'oh shit' moments. Could I wing it, and hope nobody checked the dates? Or go back to my storyline and rework it completely?

What would you have done?

11 comments:

  1. This is like a mystery story, Jo! I can't wait to hear what you managed to find out!

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    1. I had such fun with it - and then had to fit a story into everything I now knew!

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  2. It was the same in London: the Irish fleeing famine, largely caused by British landlords and their neglect, weren't welcome in Victorian London. Punch nastily said there were 3 types of Irish: The Irish, the wild Irish and the very wild Irish. But were it not for the work of the navigators, we wouldn't have the railways, nor the sewage system that we still have.

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    1. It has a dreadful echo in some of the stuff that's around now - let's blame refugees for Everything.

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  3. You're going to have to go to Australia Jo!

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  4. Now I've read the real thing, I' m going to have to agree with Anne, regardless of the fact you've written your novel already!

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    1. I have been once, many years ago - it's on the list as somewhere fairly straightforward when I'm too creaky to manage crocodiles!

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  5. As to what to do, winging it sounds the best way. In a novel you can invent facts to fit the plot up to a point....acknowledge the real situation, but make up some reason why your protganist didn't go to the west!

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    1. Am afraid you'll have to wait a week or few to see what I actually did!

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  6. Magical realism might offer the way out. You are the novelist and you are in control of your book. It is not a piece of non-fiction and therefore it cannot be judged along the same lines.

    Greetings from London.

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