Secret River

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The Secret River spans the two and a half decades that opened in the grip of the 'bright young things' of the mid-twenties and closed in the blanket embrace of the Welfare State. It takes us from Bayswater, via the Sussex countryside, the South of France, a seaside resort on the South Coast and a 'garden-city' in Hampshire, to the final climax in Waterloo Station. It tells the story of Harriet Ashworth as a child, an adolescent and a young woman, and of her mother, vain, silly, snobbish and egocentric, yet not entirely unsympathetic - whether she is aping a London hostess, a Lady of the Manor or the smart set on the Riviera, or flying desperately to 'The Wilderness' in search of safety from the bombs - and it is in her shadow that Harriet must live her life. She stays at her mother's side from love, from filial duty and because she comes to realise more and more that without her presence her mother would drift rudderless to absolute disaster. She is a study in self-abnegation. Her friends can make their own lives, but she cannot. Only in the closing section of the novel does opportunity beckon at last. The Secret River is full of beautifully observed scenes that pin-point a class a

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