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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'In 1960, when the legendary icebreaker Magga Dan set sail for Antarctica, it contained a secret. Hiding on board was Nel Law, wife of expedition leader Phillip Law. She would make history by becoming the first Australian woman to set foot on the icy continent, but it was her art that would change everything.
'Though a talented artist, Nel has always been defined by her role as ‘the explorer’s wife’, but in the clear expanse of the Southern Ocean, her true self is finally allowed to emerge. Despite misogyny from the all-male crew and increasing resentment from her mercurial husband, Nel’s art begins to flourish. Her new friend, a gentle ornithologist, encourages her to explore, but as the ship ploughs on towards Antarctica, rumours swirl, threatening her marriage and the tenuous peace between the controlling Phillip and his crew. In the clear, white light of the south, Nel will be forced to confront the truth of herself and the man to whom she has dedicated her life.
'This stunning reimagining of Nel Law’s life reveals a ground-breaking artist searching for freedom in a world where women’s lives were still defined by their husbands.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
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Author's note: For Andrew & Ron
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Large print.
- Dyslexic edition.
- Braille.
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
Interdependence : Three New Novels
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 456 2023; (p. 34)
— Review of Feast 2023 single work novel ; Missing Pieces 2023 single work novel ; The Art of Breaking Ice 2023 single work novel'British sculptor Barbara Hepworth wrote that ‘there is no landscape without the human figure’. Similarly, there is no human without the landscape in which they are situated, human and landscape mutually shaping, resisting and defining the other.
'Three new Australian novels probe this interdependence, each of them concerned with the historical forces that have silenced and confined women, and each of them testing the capacity of their female characters to assert their stories, their selfhood, in the face of a hostile and unfamiliar landscape. Critically, what differentiates the novels is the degree to which their authors discover within these environments a similitude with their characters’ emotional struggle, the landscape not merely adorning the narrative but becoming essential to it.'(Introduction)
-
Interdependence : Three New Novels
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 456 2023; (p. 34)
— Review of Feast 2023 single work novel ; Missing Pieces 2023 single work novel ; The Art of Breaking Ice 2023 single work novel'British sculptor Barbara Hepworth wrote that ‘there is no landscape without the human figure’. Similarly, there is no human without the landscape in which they are situated, human and landscape mutually shaping, resisting and defining the other.
'Three new Australian novels probe this interdependence, each of them concerned with the historical forces that have silenced and confined women, and each of them testing the capacity of their female characters to assert their stories, their selfhood, in the face of a hostile and unfamiliar landscape. Critically, what differentiates the novels is the degree to which their authors discover within these environments a similitude with their characters’ emotional struggle, the landscape not merely adorning the narrative but becoming essential to it.'(Introduction)
- Antarctica,
- 1960
