Interesting history re Vida Goldstein and the fight for women's rights, se in 1900 in Victoria. Also the moving story of Maggie, a young girl fighting to survive the hardship of women's lives in that era. Not always an easy story to follow. ( )

Set in Victoria in the early 1900s, OUT OF THE SILENCE has been republished by Momentum in digital format. This novel won the 2006 Ned Kelly for Best First Australian Crime Novel. Given that Wendy James has now written a number of other books, not only is this a chance to look back at an extremely worthy award winner, it's also a chance to look at back at the work of an author who specialises in sensitive looks at difficult subjects.

Whilst the packaging might be suggesting something a little on the romantic side, and the subject matter pertains particularly to women, this novel is a clever combination of true history and fictional stories that would work for all readers. The fictional stories revolve around two women - country girl Maggie Heffernan and immigrant Elizabeth Hamilton. Although from considerably different backgrounds, both women find themselves in need of work and a way to support themselves in early Melbourne. In a time when the most basic of women's rights were still being fought for by the fledgling Suffragette movement.

Maggie's story starts out in rural Victoria where, living with her family, she longs for something more than that the destiny of country wife and mother. When she meets Jack Hardy part of her sees him as a way out, part of him simply falls in love. Despite all his promises, when she discovers she is pregnant, Hardy is nowhere to be seen.

Elizabeth lost her true love, killed in a tragic accident in the UK, she emigrates to Australia with the promise of a job as a governess. When that job isn't all she hoped for she returns to Melbourne, to live with relatives, and work as a teacher in a specialist school for young women where she encounters the fledgling suffragette movement and Vida Goldstein. Goldstein, a real-life figure, is one of the leaders of that movement, and a passionate believer in the rights of women. It's through Goldstein that Maggie and Elizabeth's lives collide, after she takes up the case of Maggie's murder conviction after her baby is found, drowned in the Yarra River.

OUT OF THE SILENCE is a slow burner book that switches backwards and forwards between the two women's stories. It's a careful and pointed look at the nature of the society and the avoidable circumstances that can tragically lead to murder. In particular it looks at the restrictions and expectations forced on women by others. Whilst it might be easy to dismiss this as "women's fiction", this book does something very clever, very subtly. It personalises the pressure. It shows clearly how unfair the double-standards about unwanted pregnancy were, how restrictive the expectations of women "in their place". It takes all of that out of the realms of history and right into the lives of two women who, because of the skill with which James writes their stories, feel very real. Not surprising that it won the Ned Kelly really.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/out-silence-wendy-james ( )

Set at the turn of the last century in Australia, Out of the Silence is a compelling blend of historical and crime fiction. Based on a true story it draws from historical record and the imagination of Wendy James to explore the fate of two women, working class Maggie Heffernan and genteel immigrant, Elizabeth Hamilton at a time when the suffragist movement, led by Vida Goldstein, was gaining ground in Victoria.

Maggie's story is told in the first person, beginning in rural Victoria where she lives with her family. A little wild, Maggie wants more than "...a life indoors where nothing happens but potatoes boiling over and socks that need darning, or a child to be fed or changed or beat." and when she meets Jack Hardy, who similarly longs for more than his status offers, she falls desperately in love.

Elizabeth's life is shared through letters to her brother and private journal entries. The tragic death of her fiance in an accident shattered her dreams for the future and she chose to emigrate to Australia to take up a position as a governess. When she determines she unsuited to the situation she is instead offered accommodation with her cousins and Elizabeth joins the staff of a private school in Melbourne, finding herself a witness to the growing suffragette movement but yet hoping for "the promise of the fulfilment and contentment and happiness that for [Elizabeth] only marriage can provide".

Vida Goldstein, who is a real figure from history, is Elizabeth's employer at the private school where she works, and a close friend of her cousin, Harriet, with whom she lives. Vida's passion for women's rights is what brings these three very different characters together, when Maggie is accused, convicted and sentenced to death for murder.

Out of the Silence is not a who-dunnit but a why-dunnit exploring the social and personal contexts that led Maggie to commit such a heinous crime. It questions where the blame lies for the path her life takes, for the choices she is forced to make and how society's perception of who she is, and so what she deserves plays a part in determining her fate. It's a fascinating tale that James writes with empathy and adds human interest to the wider debate about women's rights.

Though Elizabeth's accounts can be rather dry, her moderate views temper Vida's enthusiasm and Maggie's desperate circumstances. I like that James gives each woman and her perspective a voice without judgement. Though their situations are very different their basic desire, to choose their own fate, is the same.

Out of the Silence is rich in period detail, it illustrates a time, place and attitude where science, religion and social awareness began to conflict. In large part this novel is a historical record of the momentum of the suffragette movement in Australia around the year 1900. It explores the role of women in accordance with class, privilege and law of the time, contrasting the circumstances of individuals like Maggie and Elizabeth.

A well crafted, thoughtful novel, Out of the Silence is a fascinating story of women, of love and desire. I am very pleased that Momentum has republished this award winning title for a new audience to discover. ( )

It is the story of two women living in Victoria at the turn of the last century. Our country’s six separate colonies were still a year or so away from federating as the Commonwealth of Australia and only two of those six colonies allowed women to vote. At the outset of the story Maggie Heffernan is a teenager living in the country. She is happy enough with her lot, although the lack of any genuine affection from her mother puts a strain on her young shoulders, but becomes radiant when she falls in love with the nephew of one of her neighbours. Elizabeth Hamilton is a thirty(ish) English woman who has moved to the colony on her own, following a personal tragedy that has demanded she be more independent than she had ever thought she would need to be. She is engaged to be a governess for a local family but when that situation proves unsuitable she heads to Melbourne to stay with some cousins, one of whom ultimately provides the mechanism for the paths of these two women to cross.

It wasn’t until that cousin, Vida Goldstein, cropped up that I realised this book was based on real-world events (I never read blurbs before reading the book and picked this one to read simply because I enjoyed James’ most recent novel and wondered what her first, which won the 2006 Ned Kelly Award for best first fiction, might be like). In the novel, as in real life, Goldstein was one of Australia’s leading campaigners for women’s suffrage and the general improvement of women’s lives which is how she became involved in the story of the real Maggie Heffernan who was convicted of a very real, and truly awful, crime. Elizabeth, who is an entirely fictional character, provides an interesting counter-balance to Maggie in terms of the roles women of different classes are expected (and themselves expect) to play in society as well as allowing the author to tease out some of the fictionalised details of the events which might have led to Maggie’s fate. Most reviews and discussions of the book provide a lot more detail than this but in case, like me, you want to come to the novel with fresh eyes, I shall say no more about the plot.

Maggie’s story is told with a straight-forward, first-person narrative while Elizabeth’s unfolds via a mixture of extracts from her diary and letters to her journalist brother as he travels the world. There are also, towards the end, a few extracts from newspaper articles (I’m unsure if these are actual reproductions or a product of James’ imagination but it doesn’t matter – they add a nice detail either way). Differentiating the storytelling in this way helps the reader quickly and easily adjust to each switch from one woman’s narrative to the other’s as well as allowing the widest possible scope for the novel to have a personal aspect about the main characters and a wider, more public one about the role of women in the society being depicted. I thought the novel worked well on both levels and James achieved the right balance between these two elements. For example from what little I know of her I suspect an entire book devoted to good works of Vida Goldstein might make for somewhat…earnest… reading but her strategic placement at key parts of this story adds a necessary layer of social context and some fascinating glimpses into the local movement for women’s suffrage.

The characters here are highly nuanced and do not always behave as the reader expects. Both of the two central women are presented with options that, if chosen, would have changed their ultimate fate. For Maggie in particular this would have been hugely significant and I really liked the way neither she nor the author took the easy route. Of course James was driven in part by the facts of the case but if she’d wanted to present a less thoughtful but perhaps more socially acceptable storyline for Maggie she could have neglected to create such forks in the road for her fictional version of the woman.

I thoroughly enjoyed OUT OF THE SILENCE. The historical detail provided via a mixture of fact and fiction, the thoughtful consideration of the roles women were given or, in some cases, made for themselves, at this time in history and the thoroughly engaging story are all equally strong elements to recommend the novel. And although it is not the classic whodunnit beloved of crime fiction fans, it is a very good example of the far more thought-provoking, and ultimately more satisfying whydunnit.