A Great Act of Love is the sixth book by Heather Rose I’ve read, and the second I’ve reviewed after Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here.
It’s no great surprise that I’m a fan. Rose was born in Hobart (where I grew up) and has set five of her novels in Tasmania. In addition, she was a visitor to our house in Lilyfield in the late 90s when she was working on her first novel, White Heart, and getting advice from Hazel.
But I think what I like the most about her body of work is the variety:
- a highly spiritual tale of a sun dancer and a Tasmanian tiger hunter
- crime fiction based on the disappearance of Lord Lucan
- a magical realist fable in which people become trees, rivers and fish
- an extraordinary extrapolation based on performance artist Marina Abramovic
- a political satire about a bridge from Bruny Island to the Tasmanian mainland
- a moving, personal memoir of her damaged family and her personal journey
- and now an epic historical novel tracing a family from the French Revolution to colonial Hobart
This latest one places her squarely in a milieu familiar to me from the works of my friend Mary-Lou Stephens (The Last of the Apple Blossom, The Chocolate Factory, The Jam Maker).
Like Mary-Lou’s books, A Great Act of Love is very easy to read, pulling me into a compelling story with a beautifully constructed plot, compelling characters, strong emotions, loves won and lost, intricate research, and settings I can easily picture as they are so familiar to me.
The story is told in flashback chapters focusing on the central characters: Caroline Colbert, from a French family who escaped the Revolution to Scotland and then London and who relocates to Hobart; her father Jacques-Louis, a winemaker who reinvents himself as a herbalist apothecary before committing a shocking crime; her aunt Henriette, a society dowager with a secret criminal life; Cornelius, a Caribbean slave escapee who creates a new life for himself as a master blacksmith in a Hobart town trying to shake off its convict history; and the Commandant of Norfolk Island, who plays a key albeit unwitting role in pulling all the strings of the story together.
It’s grand in scope, with settings including revolutionary Paris and regional France, Edinburgh, London, pre-canal Panama, sea voyages around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, and especially the antipodean island of Van Diemen’s Land.
Equally compelling are the highly detailed accounts of various forms of human endeavour: grape growing, champagne making, herbal remedies, shoplifting, disguises, wrought iron work, colonial oppression, prison life, cross-dressing, language, indigenous history, execution by guillotine, life at sea, fashion, the impact of the Industrial Revolution – I’m not sure I’ve ever learned so much in a single novel.
As the story unfolds and the relevance of the title becomes apparent, it’s also impossible not to be deeply moved – even more so by the frankly shocking denouement.
A Great Act of Love is truly epic, on the grandest scale.
I was fortunate to be at the launch of this book, where Rose’s answer to a question made clear that she has achieved a level of success where she can and does write what she wants.
If anything, A Great Act of Love shows that Rose’s writing has become marked by a greater control than ever: the measured, deliberate, and engaging style of a confident writer approaching new peaks.
Highly recommended.