Salt Creek in Aussie Readers

Aug 22, 2015 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites-adult, indigenous-first-nations, chcc-library, australian-author, historical-fiction

5★
“They moved across our land, certain and complete, not sparing us a glance unless there was a pressing need to converse.”

The Ngarrindjeri people seem surprisingly unperturbed by the newcomers on their land. South Australia has often enjoyed bragging rights about being the first Australian colony settled by free settlers rather than by convicts, but I’m not sure the local indigenous people were any happier about it.

I read this book several years ago and loved it. Father Finch (a dreamer and sch ...more

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Jul 08, 2015 Brenda rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-on-kindle, aussie-authors, 2015-release, net-galley, historical-fiction, arc, own-read

4.5 stars

Salt Creek on the Coorong of South Australia was the destination of the Finch family in 1855 – fallen on hard times with their business in Adelaide, Mr Finch and his wife brought their entire family to the ramshackle and isolated property of Salt Creek, thinking to make their fortune and restore their good name. But Mr Finch and his grand ideas continued to fail, leaving him continually deeper in debt…

Fifteen year old Hester Finch found the burden of caring for the family falling on her 4.5 stars

Salt Creek on the Coorong of South Australia was the destination of the Finch family in 1855 – fallen on hard times with their business in Adelaide, Mr Finch and his wife brought their entire family to the ramshackle and isolated property of Salt Creek, thinking to make their fortune and restore their good name. But Mr Finch and his grand ideas continued to fail, leaving him continually deeper in debt…

Fifteen year old Hester Finch found the burden of caring for the family falling on her shoulders; her mother was often melancholic which meant she spent time in her room and staring into space. Mr Finch wouldn’t accept charity from Grandmama and Grandpapa who were left in Adelaide – he also wouldn’t let them visit; or let his family visit them. A proud man he was, but not a sensible one. As they saw very few people in the area they were living, the children were lonely; Mrs Finch bereft…

The Ngarrindjeri people lived in and around the local lands and young Tully befriended the Finch family. Fred, younger than Hester, looked up to Tull and they became fast friends with Tull eventually joining the children in the school room to be taught by Hester’s mother and Hester herself. When tragedy befell the family it began a chain of events that would see disaster rip them apart; the Ngarrindjeri people lose their livelihoods and a realization that nothing would ever be as it was…

Salt Creek by Aussie author Lucy Treloar is a profound and deeply moving novel of very early Australia and the trials and tribulations of the early settlers. Narrated by Hester Finch throughout, she looks back and tells the story of her life and the life of her family; the heartache and sadness, hope and beauty of those early days – interspersed with descriptions of the stark and beautiful region they called home; as did the local Aboriginal people whose lives were torn asunder by the arrival of the white people. Written in a quiet yet consequential manner, Salt Creek kept me in its grip all the way to the end. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.
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Jun 11, 2017 Kathryn rated it liked it

Shelves: reading-list-2017, fiction, audiobooks, australian-authors

3.5★ A rather bleak story, set in South Australia’s Coorong region in the 1850s - 1870s. I am always reminded when I read books set in this period (especially Australian books of this era) just how hard it was to be a woman at this time. Or a child, because the children had to grow up quickly and take on the duties of adulthood earlier than we are accustomed to in this day and age.

I felt sorry for Hester, and her mother. I initially thought her father was good at heart, but a product of his time 3.5★ A rather bleak story, set in South Australia’s Coorong region in the 1850s - 1870s. I am always reminded when I read books set in this period (especially Australian books of this era) just how hard it was to be a woman at this time. Or a child, because the children had to grow up quickly and take on the duties of adulthood earlier than we are accustomed to in this day and age.

I felt sorry for Hester, and her mother. I initially thought her father was good at heart, but a product of his times, although my view of him changed over the course of the book. I can’t imagine how the family, but especially Hester, had the endurance to go on with doing everything that had to be done day in, day out with all the trials and setbacks that they had. Hester was determined that she wouldn’t follow the same path as her mother (marriage, which would lead to babies and children to whom she would then be irrevocably tied, working her hands to the bone to keep them all fed and clothed and the household running smoothly, and especially not stuck in the middle of nowhere) and yet her determination to avoid this, enmeshed her in a similarly hopeless situation just as much as if she had married - at least in the short term.

There were some interesting scenes with interactions between the native inhabitants and the English Finch family which highlighted the misunderstandings between the 2 groups of people. These were often disappointing in the extent of how misguided the new settlers were in how they acted and spoke to the native Aboriginal people. It made me think about how we - even in this day and age, or perhaps especially in this day and age - do things that create an impact on our world, while the Aboriginal people walked so lightly on the earth, that they left very little evidence of their presence and knew how to live more sustainably than we did at that time and more so than we do now. And yet, I don't think I would manage very well if I had to give up my Western trappings and live as an Aboriginal... I wish I could be a little like the main Aboriginal character, Tully, and live in the best of both worlds! Although Tully's life was still not without its dramas and difficulties.

It’s difficult to believe that Salt Creek is a debut novel because it was quite beautifully written. Beautifully narrated, too, by Ulli Birvé. I remember there were some lovely descriptive passages, but overall my impression of the writing is that it reflected its setting in a sense - spartan, and a little bleak. ...more

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Jul 09, 2015 Michael Livingston rated it really liked it

4.5

This is a rich, moving book, capturing the loneliness and struggle of the Australian 'frontier', and the horrors that people wrought while thinking they were doing the right thing. The set-up reminded me a lot of The Secret River: a family, down on their luck, move to a remote part of the colony to try to make a life, inevitably encroaching on the lives of the local Indigenous people. Treloar does as good a job as Grenville at capturing the inevitability of the destruction that colonisation b ...more

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May 20, 2021 Tango added it

A well written and honest fictional account of Australia’s colonial history set on the wild Coroong, South Australia. The novel explores the pig-headed pride and arrogance of a do-gooder settler and the ways his bad decisions impact on his family and the local indigenous people in mostly devastating ways.

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Nov 27, 2016 Kira rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: unfinished, historical-fiction, meh, aussie-author

I'm giving up on this book. While the writing itself is descriptive and evocative, I can't connect with any of the characters and nothing much has really happened. At more than a third of the way into the book, I'd rather continue with other books. ...more

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