Summary
Rose Tremain: The Color of Gold
With her two previous novels: Restoration (which was shortlisted for the Booker) and Music and Silence (which won the Whitbread), Rose Tremain has introduced readers and critics alike to her gift for brilliantly psychologizing characters in historical novels. The novel The Color of Gold takes us to New Zealand in the middle of the 19th century. century, where newly married Harriet and Joseph try to start a new life. Both of them carry with them their reasons for leaving England and their hopes and dreams for the future, but almost immediately they collide with the inhospitality of the new country. Facing the almost insurmountable challenges of the climate, the environment and their own secrets, obsessions, desires and fears brings them to the brink of destruction, and their struggle for survival was described just brilliantly by Rose Tremain. Images of a dramatically beautiful New Zealand landscape, a vivid description of the terrifyingly difficult life of people caught up in the gold rush ("paint" is the New Zealand word for gold) alternate with a touching story about the breakdown of a marriage and human courage in completely unusual circumstances...
Biblos Newsletter
New titles, special copies and quiet recommendations from the antiquarian bookshop.