The Colour A Novel

by Tremain, Rose

• ISBN13: 9780312423100
• ISBN10: 0312423101
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Picador

Summary

Newlyweds Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from England to New Zealand, along with Joseph's mother Lilian, in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land near Christchurch where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they begin. When Joseph finds gold in a creek bed, he hides the discovery from both his wife and mother, and becomes obsessed with the riches awaiting him deep in the earth. Abandoning his farm and family, he sets off alone for the new goldfields over the Southern Alps, a moral wilderness where many others, under the seductive dreams of the "colour," rush to their destinies and doom. Rose Tremainis the author of nine novels, includingMusic & Silence,Restoration, andThe Way I Found Her. She is the recipient of the Whitbread Novel Prize, the Prix Femina, and the Sunday Express "Book of the Year" Award. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. Tremain lives in Norfolk, England, with the biographer Richard Holmes. BooklistEditors' Choice Rose Tremain has been acclaimed internationally as one of our finest historical novelists. Restoration was short-listed for the Booker Prize andMusic & Silencewon England's prestigious Whitbread Novel of the Year Award. Her new novel,The Colour, is a gripping drama of love and greed set during the mid-nineteenth-century Gold Rush in New Zealand. When newlyweds Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from England along with Joseph's mother, Lilian, they are in search of prosperous new beginnings. But they are ill-prepared for the obstacles they must face, and the harsh land near Christchurch where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they can begin. A difficult first winter exacerbates the growing tension between husband and wife, and strengthens Lilian's determination to return to England and leave this strange and unforgiving new country behind. Then Joseph finds gold in the creek behind their small farm, and, possessed by the promise of riches awaiting him deep in the earth, he hides his discovery from his wife and mother. When the creek fails to fulfill his hopes, he sets off alone for the goldfields over the Southern Alps, joining the hundreds of others who are under the seductive spell of the "colour", the miners' slang for this elusive mineral. Harriet struggles to manage the farm alone, but eventually decides to follow her husband to the gold diggings. On her own journey westward, she makes a startling discovery that illuminates the emptiness of her marriage at the same time that it holds the tantalizing promise of a future she could never have imagined. Panoramic in scope but exquisitely attuned to the fragile emotional terrain that underlies all relationships,The Colourbeautifully captures the rugged landscape of New Zealand while it forces us to question the price we will pay in our search for happiness. "In this novel that so skillfully makes use of the formulas of melodrama only to discard them and surprise us, Tremain's singular combination of the passionate and the sardonic strikes one as a marriage of say, Emily Bronteuml; and Paul Bowles.The Colouris smart, lumpy with sentiment, brutal, and oddly funnya sort of carnival in hell."John Vernon,The New York Times Book Review "The Colouris a beautifully written novel that teems with life on every page."The Boston Globe "Fully rounded human beings and a nimble prose style . . . Peerless imagination."Newsday "Extraordinary . . . a wonderful novel about change and transformation, love and desire, the valuable and the useless, East versus West, and t he living and the dead."Chicago Tribune "The Colouris storytelling in the grand style . . . Tremain has woven a hypnot

Author Biography

Rose Tremain is the author of nine novels, most recently Music & Silence, and her work has been translated into fourteen languages. She lives in Norfolk, England, with the biographer Richard Holmes.

Table of Contents

"Exhilarating...splendidly eventful...the story swells." --The New York Times

"Every bit as enthralling as any of her previous work...The Colour is a beautifully written novel that teems with life on every page." --The Boston Globe

"Writing at the top of her form. . .With its combination of vivid historical adventure and sensual, late-blooming romance, it's hard to see how this novel can miss winning a new audience for the immensely talented Tremain." --Publishers Weekly (starred)

"Fully rounded human beings and a nimble prose style... Peerless imagination." --Newsday

"[A] gripping pioneer story...The result is a page-turner that's also a work of startling beauty." --Kirkus Reviews (starred)