Playmaker

by Thomas Keneally

Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of such classics as The Daughters of Mars, Crimes of the Father, and Schindler's List comes a work of historical fiction mastery in which an English lieutenant must stage a play starring the prisoners of the Australian penal colony he supervises.

Lieutenant Ralph Clark has received the most bizarre of commissions. In honor of the king's birthday, Clark is charged with staging a production of the George Farquhar comedy The Recruiting Officer. What's more, as Clark supervises the penal colony of Sydney Cove, Australia at the very end of the late-nineteenth-century British Empire's rule, he must use his prisoners as the cast and production crew. Based on the lieutenant’s real diaries, The Playmaker is a work of true genius by one of the most notable names in historical fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780671885113
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	10/01/1993
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty-three novels since, most recently Crimes of the Father, Napoleon’s Last Island, Shame and the Captives, and the New York Times bestselling The Daughters of Mars. He is also the author of Schindler’s List, which won the Booker Prize in 1982, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, and Confederates, all of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also written several works of nonfiction, including his boyhood memoir Homebush Boy, The Commonwealth of Thieves, and Searching for Schindler. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney, Australia.

Editorial Reviews

The production in 1789 of a prisoners' performance of The Recruiting Officer provides the framework upon which the Australian author of Schindler's List and A Family Madness hangs this rollicking, thoughtful tale of his country's earliest days as England's furthermost prison. Amongst the tents and ramshackle huts of the first settlement on Sydney Cove, young Lt. Ralph Clark (a real Royal Marine who wrote a real journal) auditions such convicts as Ketch Freeman, highwayman, and Mary Brenham, thief, for the roles in the comic drama. Ralph doesn't dislike New South Wales or his duty there, but he longs for his sweet wife Betsey back in Plymouth and determines not to allow distance to diminish his faithfulness to her. As rehearsals proceed, layered life in the penal colony unfolds: provost marshall Harry Brewer is plagued by the ghost of a young Marine private recently hanged for fighting; Sydney's governor captures, and is captivated by, a handsome young native; prisoners and privates steal and deal; odd alliances are formed and sundered; and Ralph is increasingly drawn to the quietly self-possessed Mary Brenham. Ralph's resolution of his dilemma coincides with the play's staging in honor of the king's birthday; both are successful ventures. So is this lusty and affectionate tribute to Australia's raw beginnings at the time of its bicentennial. (September 24)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Booker Prize-winner Keneally shapes his latest novel from an exotic incident in the history of his native Australia. For the 1789 King's Birthday celebrations the viceroy of Sydney penal colony orders a production of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. Young Lt. Ralph Clark and his all-convict cast rehearse the manners and jokes of an England unimaginably removed even as they serve as principals in the dramatic settling of a new and mysterious continent. Those acting the double narrative include the Cornish witch Dabby, whom Ralph owes a secret debt; Mary, the beautiful thief Ralph loves; and Duckling, a dangerous teenage prostitute. As the performance nears, the tangled plots within the settlement are resolved in a startling denouement. This is a memorable tour de force, highly recommended. Starr E. Smith, Georgetown Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C.

Library Journal