'Van Diemen's Land, 1827. When Bridget Crack arrives in the colony, she has never seen such a place as Hobart Town. A spirited girl, she finds the life of an indentured domestic servant intolerable. But when she is punished for her insubordination, she realises there are far worse places to be. Sent to the 'Interior' and a brutally hard life with a cruel master, she escapes only to find herself imprisoned by the impenetrable Tasmanian wilderness. There she is saved from certain death by Matt Sheedy, a man on the run. But her precarious existence among volatile and murderous bushrangers is a different kind of hell. Surrounded by roaring rivers and towering columns of rock, hunted by soldiers and at the mercy of killers, Bridget finds herself in an impossible situation. In the face of terrible darkness, what will she have to do to survive?'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Epigraph: The river rises to the flood. The river will not tell. What is here for the telling? And who is here to tell? - Pete Hay, By the Living Harry
'Rachel Leary’s debut novel is an engaging story about the determination of one woman to survive in a colonial landscape defined by the constant threat of violence. Bridget Crack is marked by a striking rhythmic intensity that immerses the reader in the grind, shiver and worry of the brief lifespan of a rarely thought of figure, the female bushranger.' (Introduction)
'There’s a long tradition in Tasmanian literature of the gothic convict saga. In fact, Tasmanians do the convict novel better than anyone. We have a wealth of mythology, trope and imagery on which to draw and an outsized sense of our own past, a past that’s visible in the architecture wherever you go on the island.
'Our best known book, Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life, provided the template and writers have iterated on it down the generations. Think particularly of Richard Butler, Bryce Courtenay, Christopher Koch and Richard Flanagan. Now Rachel Leary has provided us with a contemporary, skilful update on the dustier of these traditions in her new novel Bridget Crack.' (Introduction)
'There’s a long tradition in Tasmanian literature of the gothic convict saga. In fact, Tasmanians do the convict novel better than anyone. We have a wealth of mythology, trope and imagery on which to draw and an outsized sense of our own past, a past that’s visible in the architecture wherever you go on the island.
'Our best known book, Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life, provided the template and writers have iterated on it down the generations. Think particularly of Richard Butler, Bryce Courtenay, Christopher Koch and Richard Flanagan. Now Rachel Leary has provided us with a contemporary, skilful update on the dustier of these traditions in her new novel Bridget Crack.' (Introduction)
'Rachel Leary’s debut novel is an engaging story about the determination of one woman to survive in a colonial landscape defined by the constant threat of violence. Bridget Crack is marked by a striking rhythmic intensity that immerses the reader in the grind, shiver and worry of the brief lifespan of a rarely thought of figure, the female bushranger.' (Introduction)
