English Passengers

Starred review from February 28, 2000
The brutal hand of British imperialism provides the foundation for this broad historical swashbuckler about the English colonization of Tasmania in the early and mid-19th century. U.K. author Kneale debuts stateside with this lengthy novel of hapless smugglers, desperate convicts, simpering bureaucrats, mad vicars and displaced aborigines. The English passengers are the Reverend Wilson, a vicar determined to prove that Tasmania was the site of the original Garden of Eden, and Doctor Potter, a ruthless scientist equally determined to prove Wilson wrong and gain fame in the victory. They're on their way to Tasmania aboard the good ship Sincerity, commanded by Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley, a high-seas smuggler and rascal of renown. This is an unpleasant voyage for everyone, especially Kewley, for he has been forced to charter his ship in order to escape punishment for dodging customs duties on his illicit cargoes. Storms, pirates and foul tempers, however, are just the prelude to the hardships that await everyone when they land in Tasmania. British self-righteousness in forcing civilization and Christianity on the aborigines causes wholesale slaughter and subjugation of the islanders, and the natives are more than just restless. Wilson and Potter's overland expedition is guided by Peevay, a wily aborigine not about to knuckle under to the white man. Of course, the expedition is a bloody disaster. Murder, madness, betrayal, mutiny and shipwreck spice up the action and provide intricate plot twists with surprising and satisfying resolutions, particularly for Captain Kewley. This rich tale is told by 20 different voices skipping back and forth across the years, but somehow Kneale manages to keep the reader from becoming confused. Kneale's careful research and colorful storytelling result in an impressive epic. BOMC featured selection.

This vast novel of Victorian adventure, which won the 2000 Whitbread Award, is told by a rotation of first-person voices. The main characters include a piratical captain smuggling stolen goods and other contraband from hither to yon, the English passengers he has been forced to take in order to finance his voyage, and various inhabitants of present-day Tasmania, both European and indigenous. The English passengers think they are going to find the historical Garden of Eden in Van Deiman's Land; they aren't. The seven readers, who include Simon Prebble, Jenny Sterlin, Patrick Tull, and Davina Porter, could not possibly be better, but spiraling from the voice of one dislikable, benighted or comic opera character to the next, with no connecting narrative tissue, makes the experience less than compelling. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine