AustLit

Clarke argues that the fiction of Geraldine Brooks and Kate Grenville 'exploits our historical amnesia in order to please themselves and their audiences. Clarke concludes that 'Brooks and Grenville give us the then and now through the exploration of different viewpoints. They may privilege those of their less plausible and more enlightened characters, but in the process they also set modern faiths in dialogue with history. Their novels remind us of the immense distance travelled, and the value of carrying on. They do what historians cannot do, through the different, imagined voices that a novel can carry. They set up a conversation with the past. Ultimately, Brooks and Grenville offer dialogic "acts" of remembrance and that, surely, is a gift.'