'Based on the life of an incredible historical heroine, a harrowing journey in search of love, justice, and freedom, told by the daughter of best-selling author Thomas Keneally (Schindler's List)
'Tall and lanky, more suited to sailing and fishing than to keeping a house, Jenny Gwyn has proven herself a survivor. When she's caught stealing to support her impoverished family, the King's justice demands she be hung from the neck until dead. Instead, she and dozens of other prisoners are sent across the world to help settle England's newest colony in Australia.
'But the harsh landscape of Sydney Cove isn't welcoming to its new settlers, and Jenny is still a prisoner under the strict watch of Governor Edward Lockhart. After being contained on a filthy ship, selling her body for better rations, giving birth to two children, and fighting to better her position in the colony, Jenny refuses to succumb to the barren land unable to support the growing population. Determined to provide a better life for her children, she braves the sea, and a journey of over three thousand miles in a small rowboat, for a chance at a future worth fighting for.
'Based on the true story of Mary Bryant, an iconic figure in the foundation lore of Australia as Great Britain's penal colony, Fled is a sweeping, heart-wrenching account of one woman's life-long search for freedom.' (Publication summary)
Dedication: For Tommy
Echo Publishing sold North American rights to Meg Keneally’s debut historical novel Fled to Arcade Publishing in 2019. (Source : Books + Publishing News 15 January 2019)
A brief review of this work appeared in The New York Times on 10 November 2019
'Anyone interested in the history of early white settlement in Australia will find this novel fascinating.'
'It has been commonplace to equate poverty with moral weakness, although it is a mistake to do so. For Jenny in Cornwall in 1783, the death of her father is a tragedy from which the family may never recover. History books are littered with families gone to ruin at the death of the chief breadwinner.' (Introduction)
'In 1961 the great Australian poet Judith Wright published an influential essay called ‘The Upside-down Hut’ that would puzzle contemporary readers. The basis of its argument was that Australia felt shame about its convict origins, and that we needed to move on. And we have: since 1961 the representation of the convict era in fiction and on screen has undergone a shift. Having convict ancestry used to be regarded as a cause for shame; now amateur genealogists hunt down convicts among their ancestors and celebrate when they find them.' (Introduction)
'Mary Bryant was a Cornishwoman transported with the First Fleet for highway robbery. After three years in Sydney, she masterminded the first escape from the nascent colony. Her story was the subject of an ABC television drama in the 1960s and a telemovie in 2005, and she has appeared as a minor character in several books. Arguably none capture the extensive detail found in Meg Keneally’s latest, Fled, in which Bryant has been fictionalised as Jenny Trelawney.' (Introduction)
'It has been commonplace to equate poverty with moral weakness, although it is a mistake to do so. For Jenny in Cornwall in 1783, the death of her father is a tragedy from which the family may never recover. History books are littered with families gone to ruin at the death of the chief breadwinner.' (Introduction)
'Anyone interested in the history of early white settlement in Australia will find this novel fascinating.'
'Mary Bryant was a Cornishwoman transported with the First Fleet for highway robbery. After three years in Sydney, she masterminded the first escape from the nascent colony. Her story was the subject of an ABC television drama in the 1960s and a telemovie in 2005, and she has appeared as a minor character in several books. Arguably none capture the extensive detail found in Meg Keneally’s latest, Fled, in which Bryant has been fictionalised as Jenny Trelawney.' (Introduction)
'In 1961 the great Australian poet Judith Wright published an influential essay called ‘The Upside-down Hut’ that would puzzle contemporary readers. The basis of its argument was that Australia felt shame about its convict origins, and that we needed to move on. And we have: since 1961 the representation of the convict era in fiction and on screen has undergone a shift. Having convict ancestry used to be regarded as a cause for shame; now amateur genealogists hunt down convicts among their ancestors and celebrate when they find them.' (Introduction)
