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Overview
Overview
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
OPTIONED FOR TELEVISION BY BRUNA PAPANDREA, THE PRODUCER OF HBO'S BIG LITTLE LIES
"A tour de force of original thought, imagination and promise ... Kline takes full advantage of fiction -- its freedom to create compelling characters who fully illuminate monumental events to make history accessible and forever etched in our minds. -- Houston Chronicle
The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.
Seduced by her employer's son, Evangeline, a na ve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to "the land beyond the seas," Van Diemen's Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel--a skilled midwife and herbalist--is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen's Land.
In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Kline, Christina Baker
- ISBN: 9780062356338
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 7.95 x 1.10
- Number Of Pages: 400
- Publication Year: 2021
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“Ye can’t know what code ye live by until it’s tested.”
Jennifer N. - 5 years 9 months ago“Ye can’t know what code ye live by until it’s tested.” I loved the stark contrast between the church/culture and the Quaker message, “Each of you is worthy of redemption. You need not always be stained by your sins. You may choose to live your lives from this day forward with dignity and honor.” “I keep thinking about Psalm 104: ‘There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number--living things both large and small.’” Verses from Revelation: “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And Psalm 93: The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly; but yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier.” I resonated with the scene when “Hazel’s legs wobbled when she stepped out of the boat and onto the deck. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she’d become to the rhythm of the waves until she was on solid ground, unable to find her footing. Afraid of losing her balance and dropping Ruby, she fell to her knees. All around her women were doing the same.” How true of us as believers! When we receive Jesus as our Savior, we step onto the Solid Ground of Truth but we often don’t realize how accustomed we’ve become to being tossed back and forth by the waves of the world. Afraid and unable to find our footing, we fall do our knees! I pray for the day when all the women around us do the same! I was convicted by the character of Mathinna. She caused me to wonder, is Mathinna how Christians treat our discipleship targets: conquests for the kingdom, gems in our crowns? We travel to an exotic country, survey the “natives,” and adopt a few as our “mission.” We collect artifacts and stories like the Franklins collected taxidermy and write newsletters to supporters back home like the Franklins showed Mathinna off at tea parties. When our evangeslitic “experiment” fails or succeeds, we are done. Like the Franklin colonists, we pack our bags and move back to our “native land” with our spiritual souvenir stories of survival and glory while forgetting the lives we’ve left in our wake. However, I was also encouraged by the parallel between the Scriptural signet ring (Haggai 2:23, Eph. 1:13) and “the ring that became the catalyst for [Evangeline’s] journey...the only ornaments she’d ever worn were the ruby ring and this ticket on a red cord around her neck. The first a marker of seduction...The second its result...Ruby. It wasn’t a name Evangeline would’ve chosen. But to Hazel it was a way to mend a broken heart. To erase a false accusation. To reclaim a treasure.” The alchemy of blood on a cross turning white the sins of the world. Ruby. The color of redemption. And so we long for the return of our Savior, “as if...waiting for something, or someone, beyond the canvas.”
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Fitting for subject of book
PAMELA B. - 5 years 11 months agoGood, fast read. Thought it would go one way and went in a totally different direction. Truly enjoyed. Makes you want to explore the subject of sending prisoners to Australia.