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The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society. Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land. During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors. Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land. In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.
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The Exiles tells the story of three women living through a brutal period in history -- "transportation," or the sentencing of British convicts to prison in Australia. I've always been fascinated by Australia's history as a penal colony, and Christina Baker Kline does it a tremendous justice by sharing the effect it had on not just the prisoners and new settlers to Australia, but also on the people native to the land. The story follows:
- Matthina, a young Aboriginal girl from the Lowreenne tribe, who is taken from her stepfather's care after an aristocratic English couple adopts her in an attempt to "civilize" her
- Evangeline, a governess sentenced to prison after a jealous colleague accuses her of stealing a ruby ring given to her by her employer's son, who has gotten her pregnant
- Hazel, a Scottish teenager with a feisty spirit, convicted of stealing a silver spoon in order to keep herself and her mother, a disgraced midwife, alive
As the only Aboriginal person in her new town, Matthina struggles to assimilate between cultures and is ostracized by the British. Evangeline and Hazel endure the hellish conditions of prison at the time, where food is scant, the cells are filthy, and they are stripped of their dignity. It would have been so easy for any of them to give into madness, and it drives home how challenging life was then, especially for women who held so little power.
Despite the injustices they've suffered, all three women do a brilliant job of accepting their present circumstances and persevering. They are shamed and outcasted by society, but none of them allow it to diminish their integrity.
CBK's writing is beautiful, and I read it slowly to really savor the story. There are so many lovely moments, such as when a Quaker woman, who brings clothing and supplies to the convicts, touches Evangeline's hand and reminds her of her humanity. This detail of small kindness, just as Evangeline has forgotten what it's like to feel seen, was one of my favorites.
The story underscores what it must have been like for the Aboriginal people, cast out of their lands and killed by starvation or disease. While The Exiles is heartbreaking in many ways, it's also a beautiful story of redemption and possibility that is absolutely worth reading.
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