Coldwater

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Have you ever read a novel and found yourself as curious about the life of its author as you are about the story's characters? Have you paused to imagine the author's surroundings, the author's lovers, friends, dreams, regrets and ambitions? That's what Mardi McConnochie did while reading the works of the Brontë sisters, which had intrigued her since she first read Wuthering Heights. Spurred by her "own sense of disappointment and frustration at the narrow and uneventful lives" of the famous sisters, she began to write what she imagined their lives could have been like, weaving together what little history tells us of them with the extraordinary history of her native Australia, and taking her "inspiration from...Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."

Coldwater is the name of a fictional island prison within the greater penal colony of Australia during the era of "transportation," when convicts were sent from England to carry out their sentences on that distant continent. Captain Wolf, the warden, is a man whose fond intentions are equaled only by his brutality, and the prisoners aren't the only ones to chafe under his strict control. Restricted in their movements and starved for companionship, his three daughters, Anne, Charlotte, and Emily, create dramatic fictions, first in their heads and later on paper, until their imagined escapes are unexpectedly replaced by real romance, adventure, and heartache.

First, a headstrong Irishman takes his place among the prisoners, provoking the Captain into a grudging respect and Emily into an awed infatuation. Then comes the mysterious Diver, a swimmer from the mainland whose scheme to free his imprisoned brother becomes a plan to rescue Anne as well. Meanwhile, as the Captain's madness grows more acute, Charlotte stands firm as a rock on a desolate shore, determined to arrange her future by her own design.

By reinventing the lives of three of the world's most famous sisters, McConnochie explores both the gap and the fusion between art and reality, and between a documented and an imagined history. Which story, the written or the experienced, is more persuasive? Who is more flesh and blood, the character or the writer? McConnochie's richly textured and delightfully old-fashioned narrative plunges her readers into these questions.

Reader's Guide

1. The life of the real Charlotte "never quite matched up to her own capacity for experience, " says Angela Carter in the epigraph. But the limitations of society aren't the only things that make real life different from imagined life. Many of us regret the gap between the way we are living and the way we could be living if things were a bit different. Do you think such discrepancies are necessarily unfortunate? Or is the fact that our imagination sometimes outpaces our reality perhaps something to be tolerated or even embraced?

2. Our introduction to Captain Wolf occurs just after he's been shot, at a moment when his heart is, in Charlotte's account, "exposed to the air, so vulnerable...ticking his life away." in fact Wolf's heart is unharmed; the bullet has struck elsewhere. Why do you suppose McConnochie selected this moment, and this particular image, as our first glimpse of the Captain? What does it tell us about hiim, and how does it influence our feelings about him as the novel goes on? Remember that Anne and Emily were witness to the scene as well. How do you imagine each of them might have described it?

3. In novels, as in life, people often hold views of themselves and of each other that conflict with what might commonly be considered the truth. What does Charlotte's description of her sisters -- "Emily was pathologically shy" and "Anne was bad-tempered and lazy" -- tell us abut Charlotte herself? Discuss Emily's faith in the Irishman, whose trustworthiness remains one of the book's unanswered questions. How do other incidents of self-deception influence Coldwater's plot?

4. Charlotte is the only one of the Wolf sisters who finally fulfills her vow to become a published writer. But early in the novel, it is she who asks, "What's the point of writing yourself a book? You already know how it's going to end." Why do you think she ultimately chooses to be a writer, after all?

5. Like Coldwater, many novels these days incorporate a collage effect, including bits and pieces culled from journals, recipes, lists, and other sources. How does the inclusion of reports from Captain Wolf, letters and parts of the Wolf sisters' novels change your experience of Coldwater?

6. "A secondary penal colony must...have an exemplary, symbolic function. It must be a warning and a threat; a living hell," writes Captain Wolf in An Account of an Australian Penal Settlement. Later, Wolf goes on to say that "prisons are designed to stamp out individuality, and induce a state of docile tranquility." How does what you know about prisons today in this country compare to Coldwater, and to Wolf's view of what a prison should be?

7. At the time when this story takes place, Australia was a giant penal colony in the hands of the British Empire; McConnochie has set her story in a prison within a prison. But in this novel, the concept of what imprisons us -- and what might free us -- is far more complicated than that. In a world in which one prison seems to lead to another, what do you suppose to be the ultimate release?

8. "I don't want a husband," Charlotte wails to Glade. "I want you. I don't care where we go, or what happens to us, I just want to be with you. We'll have our love. Love is enough."
"No it isn't," Glade answer.
With whom do you agree?

9. In a man, Charlotte looks for intellect, spirit, and passion; Emily likes a "look of defiance" and "a decision in all his gestures," while Anne seems attracted to The Diver's mystery. Is there any common ground in their desires? How would you define what it is that women want? How do you suppose your mother might answer it? Your daughter?

10. Emily says that tragedy is less dishonest than other forms of literature. In the end, is Coldwater a tragedy? Do you prefer to read books that end in "wedded bliss" or those that end with their "characters surviving their misfortunes and learning to live with dissappointment?"

11. Who started the fire?

12. Discuss Branwell's role in the story and his influence on the lives of his sisters.

13. "Even the most dangerous ideas can be handled safely, if they are considered in a thoughtful and intelligent manner." Which of the novel's characters says this? Do you agree or disagree?

14. Have you read any work by the Brontes? How does that color your reading of Coldwater? Does Coldwater change your reading of the Brontes' own work?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARDI McCONNOCHIE is the author of several plays and currently works as a TV scriptwriter and editor. She lives in Sydney, Australia.


From the Hardcover edition.