What if Elizabeth Macarthur--wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool
baron in the earliest days of Sydney--had written a shockingly frank
secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously
found and published it?
Marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her heart, the search for
power in a society that gave women none: this Elizabeth Macarthur
manages her complicated life with spirit and passion, cunning and sly
wit. Her memoir lets us hear--at last!--what one of those seemingly
demure women from history might really have thought.
A Room Made of Leaves is set in the past, but it's just as much about
the present, where lies have the dangerous power to shape reality. This
book is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand
by one of our most original writers.