This is a very tricky book to review. If taken at face value, it’s an intriguing exploration of an unhappy marriage told from the perspective of a wife, with the new colony of New South Wales as its historic backdrop. However, it’s supposedly the recently discovered private diaries of a famous early Australian, edited by Kate Grenville.

Little is known about Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of John Macarthur, aside from her circumspect letters sent home to England. John Macarthur is credited with the establishment of the Australian merino wool industry. Her ‘diaries’ suggest that it is, in fact, Elizabeth who is responsible for the breeding that created our famous wool. The Elizabeth we meet in her diaries has very contemporary views and opinions, which I found unlikely and incredible (in the true meaning of the word) considering her background and the societal mores of the time.

However, there are many aspects of the book that hit the mark and resonated as truth. As a young girl growing up in Devon, Elizabeth realises that she needs to hide her curiosity and intelligence as it is not seen as ‘becoming’ in a girl. She is painfully aware that without a husband, her life will be grim. Unfortunately, she is impelled to hastily marry Ensign John Macarthur after a brief fumble in the dark leads to pregnancy. It doesn’t take long before Macarthur reveals his true nature as a brute and a bully, who insists on his conjugal rights on a nightly basis, no matter how his wife feels. As Elizabeth writes;

“As a wife, with nowhere to go beyond wifedom, I was no more than a tenant in my body. If the landlord came to the door, I was obliged to let him in.”

The descriptions of life with a bully are all too real and will resonate with any reader who has experienced domestic violence;

“How many wives learn, as I did, how to test the air in a room? To check the tilt of her husband’s head, the set of his feet, his grip on a spoon, his fist beside the plate? To feel in an instant whether it was an hour of sunshine or shadow? The weather in those rooms was as changeable as Devon in May.”

Grenville is at her best when describing landscape and the reader gets a real sense of place, particularly in the descriptions of Parramatta, which is bucolic in comparison to the squalor of the settlement at Sydney Cove. As Elizabeth grows to realise that she loves her new home and no longer looks to England as her home, she sees beauty in her surroundings.

Relationships with the original inhabitants are portrayed as fraught and full of misunderstandings. Although Elizabeth feels she has an understanding of the local women, she admits that “we all know an undigestible fact: I am not prepared to give them back what has always been theirs. Not prepared to gather up my children and get on a ship and return to the place of our forebears.” Elizabeth suggests that Mr. Macarthur was responsible for the capture of Pemulway and the murder of his followers through an act of trickery and deception.

The novel is broken into five parts, and each chapter is a mere 2 or 3 pages, making it a very easy book to read.

I am now intrigued to discover more about the Macarthurs and to explore the Parramatta area, in particular re-visiting Elizabeth Farm. Although I know this book is a fiction, I still feel an affinity with this woman who, despite her appalling husband, made a life for herself in a strange and challenging new world. In this regard, A Room made of Leaves is successful, as it will lead many other readers to explore our history and how it has formed the country we call home.