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Woman of the Inner Sea Paperback – March 1, 1994

by Thomas Keneally (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 52 ratings
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Why would wealthy Kate Gaffney-Kozinsky flee her husband, lover, family, and society? What can she find by losing herself in the bleak Australian outback? The fascinating answers shape a novel that gives new definition to a woman's strength and endurance. Kate's odyssey takes her from a privileged girlhood, through her meaningless marriage to a lawless tycoon, and an empty erotic affair with a true-blue gentleman. But when her life of pampered pleasure gives way to one of unspeakable tragedy, all certainties are shattered, and Kate is plunged into a blind gamble on an unknown future in the middle of nowhere. The job she finds, the lovers she takes, and her final confrontation with her husband's power and her own past self interweave comedy, irony, drama, suspense, and wondrously affirmative human revelation. With its vivid setting, its cross-section of colorful characters, and, at its center, its passionate heroine caught in a nightmare of grief and deception, Women of the Inner Sea is at once startlingly intimate and universally appealing. It adds a new dimension and fresh luster to one of the major literary reputations of our time. 

"One of the finest storytellers in the business . . . at the top of his form . . . an extraordinary, eloquently written tale."—The Boston Globe
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    277 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Plume
  4. Publication date
    March 1, 1994
  5. Dimensions
    5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0452271770
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0452271777
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thomas Keneally has won international acclaim for his novels Schindler's Ark, Confederates, Gossip from the Forest, Playmaker, Woman of the Inner Sea, and A River Town. He is most recently the author of the biography American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Plume (March 1, 1994)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 277 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0452271770
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0452271777
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 52 ratings

About the author

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Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally

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Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty novels since. They include SCHINDLER'S ARK, which won the Booker Prize in 1982 and was subsequently made into the film Schindler's List, and THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH, CONFEDERATES and GOSSIP FROM THE FOREST, each of which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent novels are THE DAUGHTERS OF MARS, which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2013, SHAME AND THE CAPTIVES and NAPOLEON'S LAST ISLAND. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including his memoir HOMEBUSH BOY, SEARCHING FOR SCHINDLER and AUSTRALIANS. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
52 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Don
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful read
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2008
I have a fancy idea to visit Australia some day. And if I do, I hope to capture at least some of the lyrical feelings and tensions and wonders that Keneally throws around with such ease. The word that comes to mind is "evolution". All the characters (and I use this word with full meaning) are in a constant state of development, as is the continent itself. No static figures here. Dispair, mental instability, and even survival are treated with a tentative gentleness that I have not encountered before.

My hat is off to Mr. Keneally. I hope there are many more stories in the wings.
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Virginia Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars What a terrific novel!
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2020
Verified Purchase
By wonderful chance, a signed copy of this Australian novel fell into my lap. That is a long and delightful story in itself. What a terrific book! It reminds me of a latter-day Dickens phantasmagoria, bringing together diverse characters, ethnic and class rivalries, setting, suspense, heartbreak, and unbelievable incidents made believable. And there are even important animals to cherish and root for. Both my husband and I--and friends to whom I sent it almost immediately--loved it. We want to visit Australia as soon as we can; meanwhile, we fed our interest by watching PBS's series "Australia, the First Four Billion Years." I can't do justice to Keneally's work in a brief review. As one friend said, "I've never read anything like it." It was published close to 30 years ago. I am so glad I found it. Very different in many particulars from "Schindler's List," but like it in its prompting of empathy--read it!
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Rose Ann Casagrande
5.0 out of 5 stars Boring book and Characters.
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2014
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Characters were not well developed or like able. Kate was a coward not a hero. The Reverend was an interesting character.
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Stephen A. Haines
5.0 out of 5 stars And this man studied to be a priest!
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2001
For many years, English explorers in Australia were convinced the centre of the island continent hid a vast ocean. The dream of an easy, controlled passage from the settled south- east coast to Asian markets remained a fixation. Charles Sturt is renowned in Australia for lugging a huge whaleboat into the arid Centre without ever finding a place to float it. John Eyre glimpsed the elusive lake that bears his name - a body of water which can extended for hundreds of kilometres or nearly disappear depending on far distant and erratic rainfall. Australia can have an Inner Sea, but it's an ephemeral phenomenon, appearing with devastating suddeness, then dribbling away into the desert sands. When human communities exist where that sea wants to form, extensive damage to crops and homes may result.
Thomas Keneally places the story of Kate Gaffney-Kosinski in this environment. Her children lost in a house fire, she flees Sydney for the land of the Inner Sea. Her emotional swag is laden with her Irish heritage and the vagaries of her faithless husband. Heavier than these, however, is the sense guilt borne of thinking herself responsible for the lost of little Bernard and Siobhan. She's not certain what the Centre will provide in the way of healing power, but it's away from the scenes of so much grief.
Arriving at an Outback village, Kate resides in a pub, trying to bury her past. But this town is known as the Venice of Wrangle Shire. Rains from the North brings water gathering in the fields around the town. Kate, who has taken up with Jelly, an explosives expert, is swept into events nearly as helpless as those surrounding the loss of her children. Her losses haven't ended, however, and her strengths will continue to be tested even in this remote place.
Keneally uses two of Australia's most prominent animals, a kangaroo and an emu in the keeping of Gus Schulberger. This aspect of the book seems contrived at first. Gus illustrates a character scattered through Australian literature - the battler, a man [invariably] "striving against banks and weather" in his efforts to gain security. Accompanied by creatures of almost divine status in Australia, Gus typifies the European insertion into that harsh, extensive world.
It's for women to tell us how well Keneally has done in portraying their feelings and responses in the circumstances Kate endures. From a man's point of view, he's succeeded. Kate's being subjected to various disturbing pressures are portrayed admirably. He is a master story teller and this book is no departure from his other successes. What would the world have lost if he had succeeded in pursuing his original ambition to enter the Catholic priesthood in Sydney? Fortunately, three dozen books later, he remains a major figure in the literature of historical fiction. Without peer in this realm, each of his books deserves space on your shelves. Many of them are eligible for repeat reading. Woman of the Inner Sea is one of those.
12 people found this helpful
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ann I'm 71
1.0 out of 5 stars stupid
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2017
Verified Purchase
I can't believe some people gave this 5 stars ....either I'm a dolt or I live on a different planet. Unfortunately, I'm the type who must finish a book once I start it - no matter how bad it is. This story is so contrived and stupid, I can't thin of anything bad enough to compare it with.
One person found this helpful
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AYJ
3.0 out of 5 stars Fine development of Australia's backcountry dominates a rather contrived plot
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2019
In this book Thomas Keneally is exploring new territory. Can a male writer realistically enter the mind of a woman who has lost her children? He does a very good job of it. Kate Gaffney is entirely believable as the deprived and desolate mother.
Keneally is amazing in his ability to create the landscape of the Australian outback and to populate it with three-dimensional characters. Other aspects of the novel are less satisfying. The inhabitants of suburban Sydney are much flatter. The philandering husband, the disapproving mother-in-law, the corrupt businessmen, the lonely neighbor, all are a bit cardboard.

Once Kate flees suburbia for the back of beyond, the story swept me along without a pause. The ending, however, with Kate back in suburbia, is maybe a bit too pat in tying up the story. It’s worth the read to find out if you agree.
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Stephanie Rivera
5.0 out of 5 stars The Fantasy of Reinvention
Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2003
The central idea of this book, it seemed to me, has to do with abandoning one life for another. If one thinks of this as essentially the American idea of reinventing oneself, Thomas Kenneally informs us that it is also very Australian, and rightly so, for Australia is a land that is full of hiding places for those who wish not to be found. The protagonist is a woman who can no longer bear the agony of her existence after the death of her children--and so attempts to do away with her identity and her history by traveling to the Outback under an assumed name. Simple enough, one might think--but here is where Kenneally's genius takes root, for we are taken on a wild and wooly ride as Kate becomes deeply embedded in the lives of a diverse set of characters, unschooled and totally remote from the sophistition and nuance that formed her own upbringing. A wild bunch indeed, they are incredibly touching in their sense of loyalty and courage. There is a surreal quality to this adventure that is heightened even more by the introduction of two pets, a kangaroo and an emu, native species which are somehow incorporated into this world of carnival and misadventure--an Australian "Don Quixote." A brilliant and stirring enactment--let them try to make a film of it!!
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars The storyline is drip-fed in an intruiging way, the characters utterly believable.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2016
Verified Purchase
Exquisitely written account of someone dealing with loss and grief and misunderstanding. Totally convincing characters. Thomas Keneally at his best!
One person found this helpful
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Alan Egerton-Warburton
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Australian Yarn
Reviewed in Australia on May 14, 2015
Verified Purchase
Woman of the Inner Sea is a great yarn of a feisty woman and several other quintessentially Australian characters, set in Sydney and the bush. It is a little contrived but not hard to suspend one's disbelief because all characters have their strengths and weaknesses and there are great moral lessons to be drawn from the story. A good book for discussion, not too heavy but good, contemporary issues.
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george stenson
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2015
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amazing book
One person found this helpful
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