Kline uses the three points of view to highlight the drastically different treatment of the three women at the hands of the British government. The characters' circumstances naturally lend themselves to this sort of narration while Evangeline and Hazel are together on the convict ship, Mathinna is far away in Australia with her own story to tell.

When the narratives do overlap, it's only briefly and not until much later in the book. The narrative is shared between Evangeline, Hazel and Mathinna, with each telling a different part of a larger story in a linear fashion - each character picks up where the last left off. A young Aboriginal girl is placed in the home of a British family where she is meant to become 'civilized.' The Exiles brings these three women together under bleak circumstances, and each must discover what she's willing to do to survive in Christina Baker Kline's novel of adversity and resilience. An Irish thief and herbalist finds her medical skills in high demand on a convict ship bound for Australia. Along the way, Thompson never fails to note the relevant evidentiary claims and the still unanswered or unaccounted for pieces, pulling this reader, ever-curiously, forward.The Exiles is a story of oppression, endurance and hope featuring three women struggling to find the inner strength needed to survive their new lives in 19th-century Australia.Ī young governess finds herself pregnant and in prison for theft and attempted murder. Reading Thompson’s style, though learned and lyrical, can at times feel like being rushed through a museum by a charismatic docent who is also constantly checking their watch. Is it possible to accurately backdate original landings via remembered genealogical lineages? Thompson takes account of disciplinary advances like philology’s reconstruction of ancient languages and nuclear science’s breakthroughs in carbon dating, while noting the often racist undertones to some of these scientists’ assumptions. she never lingers too long on any one period or figure. Respectful of that ownership, Thompson’s project traces the Western metahistory operating parallel to native stories: Rather than describing Polynesia’s history as told by Polynesians, she narrates how modern European, American, and Oceanian thinkers reconstructed this history. Thompson’s intellectual history takes the perspective of Western thinkers.

Sea people by christina thompson