Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Salt Creek
    Salt Creek
    Salt Creek
    Ebook458 pages9 hours

    Salt Creek

    By Lucy Treloar

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    ‘Salt Creek is a raw and convincing addition to the canon. Treloar writes with beauty and a winning compassion.’ The Times, Book of the Year

    1. Failed entrepreneur Stanton Finch moves his family from Adelaide to the remote Coorong area of Southern Australia, in pursuit of his dream to become a farmer.

    Housed in a driftwood cabin, they try to make the best of their situation. The children roam the beautiful landscape of Salt Creek; visitors are rare but warmly welcomed; a local Indigenous boy becomes almost part of the family. Yet there are daily hardships, and tensions with the Ngarrindjeri people they have displaced; disaster never seems far away.
    With Mrs Finch struggling to cope, Hester, their perceptive eldest daughter, willingly takes on more responsibility. But as Hester’s sense of duty grows, so does a yearning to escape Salt Creek and make a new life of her own …

    The multi-award-winning debut historical novel – Walter Scott and Miles Franklin-shortlisted.

    Reviews

    ‘Salt Creek is a love song to a lost world… the precision of Treloar’s poetry stops the heart.’ The Guardian

    ‘This is another brilliant and absorbing addition to the recent crop of exceptionally fine historical novels exploring the Australian pioneer experience and is very highly recommended.’ Historical Novels Review Magazine

    ‘Empathetic and beautifully written, the story drives deep into the pioneering experience with the confidence of a writer perfectly at ease with her subject.’ Daily Mail

    ‘[An] impressive debut… a haunting story.’ The Sunday Times

    ‘Brilliant and engaging, Salt Creek is first-rate historical fiction.’ Foreword Review

    ‘A historical novel in its grittiest, most real form’ Good Housekeeping

    ‘This engrossing novel is rich in character and local colour.’ Woman and Home

    ‘Salt Creek is an intense personal story, a very human story and a great read.’ New Books Magazine

    ‘Hester Finch is a wonderful character – the brave heart of this haunting, absorbing story’ Kirsty Wark

    ‘Evocative and beautifully written debut novel, set in 19th century Australia. Rich with landscape and stifling heat, it is absorbing and thought-provoking.’ The Bookbag

    ‘Salt Creek is historical fiction at its best, ferrying us to distant shores that seem curiously relevant to our own’ Toast Magazine[Ink@84]

    ‘Refigures the historical novel … Salt Creek introduces a capacious new talent’ The Australian

    ‘Written with a profound respect for history: with an understanding that beyond a certain point, the past and its people are unknowable.’ Sydney Morning Herald

    ‘[A] deeply moving story about love and rejection as much as it is about the impact of European settlement and the destruction of Indigenous culture.’ Sunday Age

    ‘A haunting story, beautifully written and quietly subversive.  It’s a spectacular debut.’ ANZ Lit Lovers

    ‘Salt Creek is a novel alive with character, history and poetry, leading us with careful understatement into the unfamiliar world of the Coorong region of Southern Australia.’ Walter Scott Prize Jury

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAardvark Bureau
    Release dateSep 4, 2017
    ISBN9781910709368
    Salt Creek
    Author

    Lucy Treloar

    Lucy Treloar was born in Malaysia and educated in Australia, England and Sweden, and worked for several years in Cambodia. Awards for her writing include the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific Region). Salt Creek is her first novel. Lucy lives in Melbourne with her husband, four children and two whippets.

    Related to Salt Creek

    Related ebooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      10 Best Books By Irish Authors To Celebrate St Patrick’s Day 2021

      Mar 17, 2021

      It’s St Patrick’s Day on 17 March and what better way to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland than by reading a book by an Irish author? Ireland has a population of just under five million, but despite its size it has produced some of the finest and

      6 min read

    • Article

      Re-Covered: The Mischief

      Dec 2, 2019

      Re-Covered: The Mischief
      8 min read

    • Article

      About Ed

      Jun 14, 2022

      I walk into the orchid show with Ed. As soon as I see the tumultuous hall I know he won’t last long. Ed walks like an old man though he is forty. After ten minutes on his feet, he vomits on some purple phalaenopsis. I get him outside through a fire e

      18 min read

    • Article

      Modern Families

      Jun 27, 2021

      Modern Families
      2 min read

    • Article

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women

      Jan 25, 2018

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women
      5 min read

    • Article

      Allegiance

      Nov 6, 2023

      Allegiance
      12 min read

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      Howl Palace

      Sep 15, 2019

      Last week, I finally had to put Howl Palace up for sale. Years of poor financial planning had led to this decision, and I tried to take some comfort in my agent’s belief in a buyer who might show up with an all-cash offer. My agent is a highly organi

      25 min read

    • Article

      Dining With The Durrells

      Jun 17, 2019

      Dining With The Durrells
      3 min read

    • Article

      Victoria Mas On The Mad Women’s Ball: ‘My Book Is A Fiction... But Terrible Things Really Happened To Women In Paris 200 Years Ago’

      Jun 18, 2021

      In the opening pages of Victoria Mas’s debut novel, The Mad Women’s Ball, a 16-year-old girl is hypnotised by a 65-year-old man. “Shoulders back, bosom forward, head held high,” the girl walks proudly into a lecture theatre at the Pitié-Salpêtrière h

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock

      Dec 9, 2020

      I’d gotten what I’d wanted—a room full of books and time enough to read them—but at a cost. The post A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Lily King

      Apr 25, 2020

      Award-winning and bestselling author Lily King’s latest book, Writers & Lovers, is set in the Boston area during the 1990s. This cleverly written novel features a compelling protagonist, a struggling 31-year-old writer named Casey. Readers follow Cas

      2 min read

    • Article

      California Dreaming

      Mar 31, 2020

      Rishi Reddi’s first novel, Passage West, is an audacious piece of work. On the one hand, the author situates her story in a California most of us won’t recognize: the Imperial Valley early in the previous century, when South Asians worked the irrigat

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Moment That Made Me Slim

      Jan 11, 2022

      As I reached for a carton of milk, I caught sight of a little girl looking at me. ‘Mummy, look how fat that lady is,’ she said loudly, pointing in my direction. I saw the girl’s mother gasp, her cheeks red with embarrassment as she hurriedly shuffled

      4 min read

    • Article

      King Charles’s Ruthless Revenge

      Sep 29, 2022

      IN ACT OF OBLIVION, Robert Harris brings his unrivalled ability to create vivid historical characters within tightly-honed plots to the turbulent Civil Wars and Restoration of mid-seventeenth century Britain and America. It is 1660 and Charles II has

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Salt Creek

    4.5/5

    35 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A very well-written compelling story about a family trying to make a living in Australia in the 1860s. The Finch family has little luck with various farming ventures. The story is narrated by Hester, the eldest daughter who is 15 at the beginning of the novel. Through her eyes, we see her mother's struggle with depression and pregnancy, and her father's zealous belief in the bible, and in bringing enlightenment to the Aboriginals -- largely by virtually adopting Tully, a young black boy. The novel explores themes of colonization, racial equality, family values and the role of women. It is the kind of story that will stay with me, and one that has me contemplating issues and perspectives days after I've read it.
    • 5/5
      I borrowed this book on a recommendation from LT member, jeniwren, who I thought to be a pretty good judge of literature and who shared similar interests to me, but is a much more sophisticated reader. It turns out she was right! With the exception of a section about 3/4 of the way through which seemed to lose direction a little, I found this a thoroughly engaging and worthwhile read. There are many issues dealt with and yet I didn't feel significant areas were being glossed over. There's 19th century religiosity, white-indigenous relations on both a cultural level and a personal level, father-daughter relationships, families, risk-taking and loss, crime and punishment, health, sexuality, masculinity, and more! There's clearly been a lot of research behind the story so it has an evident ring of truth.
    • 4/5
      Nothing cheerful here - historical terrible attitudes toward aboriginals by settlers, patriarchal dominance over the family, death in childbirth, death of children;snakebite, fevers, infection after lancing gums when teething, hardships of farming in a dry land. Structured with some sections written looking back with nostalgia made the narrative somewhat disjointed but it was certainly an evocative novel about the Corrong.
    • 5/5
      First of all I note that this is NOT crime fiction, although there are mysteries.A work of fiction, it is loosely based on inherited stories from the author's family, and includes some characters who actually existed, as well as some fictional creations.It is set in the period 1855-1874. The Finch family who have been in the colony of South Australia for a few years, move from Adelaide to Salt Creek on the Coorong. They are a large family, 6 children initially, but things do not go well. There is a history of "bad blood" between the white settlers and the local aboriginal tribe, including the massacre of the survivors of the wreck of the Brig Maria. Details are left sketchy, but somehow Mr Finch was involved in the punishment meted out.One of the issues is how the aborigines should be treated: Mr Finch believes in equality, but somehow that does not always come out in his treatment of others. There are references to George Taplin's attempts to civilise them through the mission at Raukkan.The environment is a harsh one and members of the Finch family die and others go to the Victorian goldfields to seek their fortune. Meanwhile Mr Finch sinks further and further into debt, always balancing one "investment" against the meagre profit from another.A very good read that seems to me to depict the history of these times with sensitivity and accuracy.
    • 4/5
      This month’s book gave our group plenty to talk about. Salt Creek, we decided, had many facets woven into its story and all of them demanded scrutiny by us.The family dynamics of the Finches, although reflective of the times, found us frustrated and full of empathy for the women, who had been taken to what seemed like ‘the ends of the earth’, without their consent or approval. If this wasn’t bad enough, they were also used and bullied by their father (and husband) until the whole family unit literally fell to pieces. Sad as these circumstances were, they make for a compelling read.The racial and class distinctions of the time was a prominent theme throughout, but we all agreed there is a lot more going on in this novel. And although some of us found it a little slow in building, generally it was considered a forceful and convincing account of such conditions. It was mentioned that Tully’s continued story would be interesting and the thought of a follow up novel was appealing. We found similarities between Salt Creek and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which we read a few years back. A family desperately trying to function at a considered level of refinement under extreme and culturally diverse conditions eventually shows the cracks in the human capacity to survive. Seeing where the strengths and weaknesses lie is always insightful and riveting for the perceptive reader … and something that we love discussing. A big tick from our group!

    Book preview

    Salt Creek - Lucy Treloar

    CNabook_preview_excerpt.html}ْ#WMQV",gwJ)Sf/闤'}aaK3)#Ny~/zǟ~zz~kabIao?Uo\_xy9f6靚y)',͵9ij~އV3/V>ƝL}ָelmS3ͼFA,p8,FiehcZaܪR3.#{k֮=-oucK&9$_yфg&vOUlq&X<}!&lAyjaks_Ԑ6dʾuWMwrWw-n&_VE0U.ؐL_յ*0;vSNlVCn[l/9/V'N` t&kXl[紷!؞E! j4W?}X~v쯉OaƧU{~Xzivwɶ.2C FntN/ng.iuƌubqlSG|?փq7=CųߐRkQj-s9>>~#pZuoHjۥ4SJ~yL3bːoMLԆc`lھMC xɿ4XK\O#Rw&%/zET4Ze>:mPi5}Z~n|׿,u7tJz}oCۍynF}^I[<ڥU0:Ѹ.)viz- ^ԟ8 1U+,$Վo9΄-/8(2w]=7Loj "dzfƢLJ'84Yy\d/؜2cB>V? bxѓɲpQbhjՏi0'GxWX_~m@]͗}?-';~'~d3GR{ɾQ70禭w Ics4Ib jKF;?}ݛCF|7}3C2;=UΦ 296xf udWrF]ۥ<^L2wݚ6BQ?x&KalPtlnxi!otLuА.prُSꮭ~/}g_9wzJۏK1قNc3Ӣ y#&kxܹ"XɄ fLrS8)gNHB] ǡ'03a zpd7P]KbCؾL.V%ĸhٴ `7M Tߥ9e@dgMV.ѯr' >nЦm~idFT/~n{SI+훱n"L`i(w0GB?S6|Ɗjqd{M<DU'~+QDx4]Lp>RI oRʆALPtmLҶZ; b96v `Zh*傚l@O~<-;8Үv 2۪L;ixpRj[eh%DNmmswVbR4-@k&Gi_ p*&)t;qE)G:g e?cɀԗg[ {UW!JKs3!9miLT &LNf4%DϤLzR!`s"wYzSe1ǏK$mynsY6;OT A8CwzE/Ћ֤x`lkL$9ԋ).u;'e /X|SJzG3'aw|0j Kg"4}iazMPǶ,1/;M y0e逳{XFglϺ|9>_Ϯz?pHиеC<9R }k뀄{3 Zȋ-<1 v 0nGWAF[ﴌӕƝKYͼL܈0NϜr#tkXs`=M͔Ҟ(E; 8C[l@&aghb: S @ bZ'xm,sӓ팓L0p#q"o_>a/l wk3^:?kd(r-K#uK'LqGun ڒ!ݿg\,yLŹل 3Uݤ{5 >tcPNmօKa'x+K:%$ X\b'E6WM/ ]A 4{_45Q0Vob7)‡ֶstiW쐛Á6Wc}~0IoWP(uRr9c)AØ:lkMyGZOySdhk~D WB ~4;Q9ayic-)R|Ihi#n,\HSchR0ݙ>s$ ?8S}oMh~ Me Qo`0!`|o_Ѿ v )MOz~e\\kc?#ue&6k9m_v^ᩓ(6bOG7˕WhSΎf *]ش6ֱd⦼!L&1T5hAcN y^+gu۠R e9W>cx0Uـix|nSQQh\ɛ_pp=8ĆM]p6:LrtYqL7-08&EXp*5C\ R.\˜ X (T\yҕŷeFI8QMpRTVyz|w~z÷?~z?=}\}ӗ_z 07rYiA jw39Bv'A_&*ϑV8DGNBlWcZÏzƴc;Q/}底%mLmPAM@iM!Lu4'4[SRT}[@GLdٙy~ ϭ:bFW?F8 oS6=M0rFo[,y$UY,;ƘmAKO逘lO `A )9nYK:T8"/87]hCn+ߏRLv0풲ّ[eƚh!ʫ07.dhs@<pL/sPMsr͑BI;~x aE|кNR^oN m`} qK"OVdX9|Ԟf3?T+3n6~6 8輘0.)"PaB:`6]bPXXPnIܴ "1S < +4(ےU 2{]8.8qLXy Hd6\trr?F`>ցxMvE!T}"r ͟\GXyCP~.ujFfvzpZ!Lsm l'UٔvxPl%3?S+h ;!M~ugv .ݕaт&=oImL@m8ΙiIaXO;d `9Fpk:ȑ˿[߷znkc`3--0h4+c7b+,`AŧصBM vmbPl_W3A.QʙE'oqwc3RdMzz?xFo6t>|\պ)+atEEu7tAKv f[Gn@`SJA"tGN&d^p5fIV󅌇yZp"F8>ӻ+ Ԋ+4<@юp\M,/Khjb;:Vɩ+ܠ1w l`ʧ+lC [X$L l:7҉9L,w5y]>`mDTk;{0 1 ̊ ~h<3-D1q B&9xͬL~;g}^wԷѵpiVhVg佽91Cl25n7 5@zL@u"IXXZ7R `w1官`E/ez[lx&Z[wvaOY"H]a:]ެ ֤VH0IV->BFYi =D&jUO-vkTF䜖5v8 BHX yLPP-2viiHU!`ԃ9h_=GwPyicĜrz&ն\K 7 qQU s NUdDZ\m(6"٪6p˅.ԟEt+]Q0k;^i#a2Hdgs1ـfo yHƐ!}Pƭͫ2=S7!W^|&L#YQܰd >mF8 7+6a`%*N#QꇃeמL>K Pq߃IbճE.DbS&cpהb35f;4$cZt̺/f-kw;xlVa^ۿ3u`WD`˭fNr=ђ1sP5X6[" ;V0̴1z?_ԬQLGWG &8؍d(k v213;aK?Y n6zW LV,1(2ogL2 +HL8ՃD.%2?-U,Pmg9Ɣu(&<4Ϲ(94́C n(hGP5Le͐b0̦/\ŴD^ /00peApOw|c:Qj'-gXH6.đKjJ{zo%N-7ͬo;.C,>uvytqʹX6ϫ˘; $ ƫHGf#W:Bg1ben@6Wu6J-vY#" u7e~l1xduLIIHGJ,Ehr~Z*Sa<5.v:Zk罈+-y2 ܶmG>2ۭ*h@5bP\j v1XՕv_z2Q$la2;^ 炰+`D|s-Aà "&gʦ(%<:C5H-vͦԀ4f cd4EԦ1ip1K!0xi 3E9096+r]LDxĥh[aufuaȲrº: #Xҷ^ڞ=A(0'ka AntJ~p($`~; ׇCRK^=7b)u6b=@&5Y /^< >y B#sê!LI0^F^M8߳:g)33O.In, yxcIF*8٧=g<\nlJbA"Q{g "H  =rMVc9SCq y䘊0]0#ݵ~J ț?q erb4let@/]~PaiC(5'8=D?aȦ_MX#2:b2(c[lA?OIZ,W`ƙ䖺1Տ~V˝4Xh\WP$—`Ů.H+Y3'ѲocZ>h Ufʓ:u?*3Ukyw@@:YUXI19 q/5,cdTQi}z*wU)z [~l㕘/k7{\fR׽(RAobXRpȒkGlyچA @2qi;HW<6|ְ(uFs oxT@De71 T:1M:Ddp¡¤+d:08q 6 i,vrʚ#zV` c QihHʿGC4n8yg.մpQ*8Q),2e"zNj6@a\jGpQ^fa )S{Ṿ`~!Bp)ӠX<'|,[|޴*zQ+TW7dr-G+H0 %nQ]Ж״lSKwo5Jӻ<ĈϘWtS4b5Ń+>¤ t(C )ZVZH3: nΫE͋=ϹF@4EHpl3)$jKgg˴NB\?z%uwϦ\xb2jq>XhhPqOb6 Z3̑hgeX΋?g5r=QaiQ- [m>+n*A] kHwKiK'!>[teNRX&~ C)* ]@(ќ TZR*vbhc2ثjKoH,A (E :/G@{W5YtYbTB2e(l@H;hKEÂu6O*%FJ_em1d>gbD4QaX)j9_=$Oyò1ܱzkzKЫ nh~k4-|za?2A/EYCRcL3- _ږCF Fm^g1h%\O_mnoި:q=UpB.o ~ \rĝMRCu7R(q"D_ՅkFE;Ah7(_|? kHPCR/~ 05{*bE9G–f*8WA4f&9p7wɃYf}"$6,N>_f.r @Y k. ѳ%PM\z+9ׅ%ciyӔ f~_O=i$tsUnT<ө6iJ#>D gu)*WJ=6 >'8by gu\&Oqg 6-k4ǖxVa>4,DXKmJE )He_Tgf ݼ 3Glv.Q`7e}$ _7QF1ٞs v€Hahg6#GtPQK0b412!(Eٴ9Qwteb-eXp)3[pd`Yw伷nVrKJ/TtYkצ6KVf{h3ȭH%iJCX*B~9κFE_C/h QG8sЀYt 9 < :%${>\ *``^c nz[1IMJV(^\*$P|aYrHէx?cicvn e$(nfH1p(ȸ[k'G\=.GØ"N^Q׻۶cb]Rjq*aO&>Yp8xQT, rbV/BLEj>6eTuȃ 7S}P!x!aYJPIS7}*:Hy MQv._q$۩U%lƏ^HSr>A9ӬOc:ю /rh x >z1:R/8ٔDݲ}2;zQ O.LoMw ڦ JgS7nGj5,+سB3Vхi0|3>1&>eHyE#'TZE_A]A,, 8'  Υг(o\&xj ĥ2kR?nؕ/RrDNט\fh?\z];b7,akL״ׇF3=Hx5g$ UpC_8jԪN3pOwb@ul$?РG&w-?߄rrZOi]ԍAضeHi6f ؾ ,1v TFWPdo/|TBK#fM\ ŷ6TK++'=,^)aЬ &QKNFΘLö]MvbstYRNՎ<We QMջsD,7D6EmSٓ5+L*òԯj]yVaq*4V PhuxN0ugU\x:bˁ K^a83ui=bh(̚uX'f(kg?y.qwQH$ ~)e+U3Yj zbD0t[jNXZ.ƎT%Vֶ,ތ$oTbSs\LĵzU꽷5p#  ݏ1R@EJ/pPs {M5ˣEE|Ώ}=fB}aOՅ_kJ #PZ,phZ#wrpgDJ}|mdTu.Zpx>BlkV\ocZ\Fkʜ:bc5Nj=Em `:Yo`ΛEEdX3"G}R1[ij052-rhL-)TE) ]EsʽRXd︁|uƙ?0 1t+ *ĞMWVW6" Qi|+8\4&7mo nwGքtю<6;㕡$,àŔSvl^ԇq/P(i*r@24QN|n j` ;Twޯ1rMo/m$+[mZQTY!p.X~7?3]kl꽋>ruE;?xX!ԇr^\ o^3R{+9=tddvکPBL3Ђ h*M2=1S6dWх7zk5F/kk2]_2}uU.n+}xQqmS^K@*}FIj"Jcq~[^,K zUγKWJ&U5s|6-a/mcGh^RvYF:WdM3+vis;:,BhN6 !c&Z9SV(t*+^ƻql3 M/"ľNs"&QϘ T/)l+N1>y */+>=@Zm=¬?CR$X ?tbbj ֬Z"Ge|SRlzj~#M`S1mRsD(q ENq(t*%<[G€V+_z¦qpQ^ҕB=j LWط{τ!goT5ӵ.UQ@ |fR ݥڅ~sP:=j @JgD%JTkAa3=YZe 3ݥչ6eAI{}3ZhS [P`sr_ 'ki-^5Do'6k?حR|A&ͭUhj h0:A\+i&HE8;籼㰷ShQ,wb͋tq,C]Ǧ߄m;E*rs:_ӯ^vgrEEaJگ bR"D] dw ~ȡZ5Afֳ`ne0iC!|j9$D{I:rKWMK#%m=!:YL%ti/t}}H 275Ǜklfd Y}+[Ta/\ul^ ~YNFX/!#w<.ٳU}Z=Cf*8 ~1zc4s:z*R:ŷՙ}1$4sW"Kq aqFl8^ũW,%,qcS[pg ي=*} xKS@K_^pUzAN6^?G߶W`C}c
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1