A review by boundsie
The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville

4.0

This is a worthy companion to The Secret River and tells the story of one of the early colony's great worthies, William Dawe, reimagined as Daniel Rooke. If Australia looks at our current relationship with Aboriginal people as a matter of confusion and conflict on all sides, then this historical novel is a reminder that it has always been thus, in spite of the best of intentions on both sides. How sad that Dawes/Rooke ultimately had more success in combating slavery and freeing slaves that in translating his knowledge of Eora languages into peaceful relationships with the colonists. In the end, Tagaran would have died of measles or smallpox in the epidemics that destroyed the Cadigal and other Sydney Harbour peoples, but the novel is skillful in reminding us that there was a chance, and it was lost.