Heather Rose: Rose Scott Women Writers Festival

Heather Rose’s latest work of fiction is A Great Act of Love (Allen & Unwin). She’s written nine novels (including Bruny and The Museum of Modern Love).

It’s historical fiction at its best. We are with Caroline all the way through this story and over many decades in her life and adventures. After Caroline’s father commits a terrible crime in London where the family live, she disguises herself as a widow and at 23 leaves for Van Dieman’s land. This is an expansive, moving and powerful book about love, families, secrets, power and inequality, about how political ideas and systems shaped and crushed people the world over. We get a very direct look into the ideological ideas and beliefs of characters alive at this time, and how those ideas shape their behaviour. Including how people view different cultures and races, how capitalism shapes worldview and also how women are viewed and treated. It’s also about how parts of Australia were formed and a fascinating look at the forces that formed the Australian psyche. 

Heather and I spoke, as part of Rose Scott Women Writers Festival in Sydney, about how class operated in Australia in those early years of the country, about how she approaches research for a work like this, about the family stories she wove into this fiction and how she transformed them. Heather also spoke about the ways the book speaks to what people must do to survive. And what they will do when moved by love.