I’ve enjoyed a couple of books by Kate Grenville, but Restless Dolly Maunder seemed different, written in a stripped-down style and very matter of fact. It wasn’t until I got to the end that I realized Grenville was writing about her own grandmother. That explained things to me, because I’ve noticed the tendency in some historical fiction writers to be a little too careful when writing about people who actually lived, afraid to take liberties, maybe (while other have no trouble telling outright lies).
Dolly is born in 1831 to a hard-working farmer and a mother who married down and seems to be disappointed about it. Although Dolly is the baby of the family, she doesn’t feel any particular affection from anyone. She is very intelligent and plans to become a teacher, but her father has been waiting for her to reach the legal age to quit school, 14, as he sees no benefit in educating girls. Soon, she has to face up to the fact that if she doesn’t marry, she’ll be a spinster stuck on her father’s farm all her life.
Twice she thinks she’ll be asked by men she cares about, but she is not because she’s not Catholic in one instance or from a good enough family in the other. She waits a long time, but finally settles on Bert Russell, her only choice, really, a pleasant, outgoing handsome man whom she doesn’t really like, but he’s a hard worker.
Her anger about her lack of options follows her throughout her life, affecting her relationships with other people. It is intensified when she learns a few months after the wedding that Bert had a daughter out of wedlock with her family’s servant girl while he was courting her and that her family had to have known it.
Dolly stays with Bert, but it is her ideas that take the couple off the sheep farm and from one opportunity to another, amassing money as they go. This novel follows her through World War I, the Depression, and World War II.
I liked this novel well enough, but the entire time I was reading it, I felt as if it was the bones of a longer, more satisfying novel. We don’t really get to know any of the characters except Dolly, for example. Once I understood this was about a real person, I realized that Grenville didn’t want to play loose with her family history.
What? Me Read? 
I remembered having a similar feeling reading The Secret River. I went back and checked my review and I commented then that I felt like The Secret River would have worked really well as a much longer and epic novel than the shorter one it was. Funny that you had the same feeling with this one.
I thought The Secret River wasn’t as bad as this one, though. I liked her first book best, or at least the first one I read, A Room Made of Leaves.
I tried to read The Secret River and failed even before it got to Australia – the writing just didn’t seem to pull me in. And no offence to her grandmother, but she sounds like a rather unattractive character to read about.
Maybe, but I was interested in the story.
I liked this one, but I agree that she seemed restricted by writing about her own grandmother. It’s the only book I’ve read by this author, but I’m looking forward to reading more of them.
I am not sure whether she has only written three, but that’s all I’m aware of. The first one seemed richer than the other two.