Launch of Not the Same Sky
Wakefield Press, Australia announces launch in Ireland of Not the Same Sky, May 26th, 2015, Hodges Figgis, Dublin.
The novel steps back in time to tell the story of three young women who were among the 4,000+ Famine orphan girls shipped to Australia between 1848 and 1850. Conlon observes them on the voyage, examines their relationship of trust with their Surgeon Superintendent, and follows them from Sydney as they become women of Australia, negotiating their new circumstances with emotion, imagination and pragmatism. An elegant and subtle novel, this is a powerful tale of memory and the ability of the mind to shut out the past. Not the Same Sky uses a stark, poetic intensity, suffused with understated humour, to shape its characters’ human presence and historical importance.
See reviews Not the Same Sky page www.evelynconlon.com Available from all good bookshops.
“Conlon’s prose is by turn poetic, acerbic, spare and beautifully descriptive. She wears her attention to detail and research as the lightest of cloaks, bringing to life the daily routine on board ship with moments of poignancy and humour” – Candy Baker, Newtown Review of Books
“This is a beautifully written novel that gives us a good story complete with empathetic characters … an intelligent and engaging piece of work that leads us into a face-to-face confrontation with some of the bigger questions concerning memories and journeys” – Rebecca Pelan, Australasian Journal of Irish Studies
“I could go on, peeling back the many layers of this multi-layered, carefully researched, beautifully written novel. But I think the better course is to launch it on its journey so that it can change us …” – Jeff Kildea, launching Not the Same Sky at New South Wales Houses of Parliament, 2013
“Storytelling at its best … her evocation of the girls’ enlivening response to the landscape and its indigenous people, the distinctive flora and fauna of the country, bears the mark of an outsider who is deeply familiar with its character, its colours and rhythms, and she writes with an artist’s eye … enables us to better understand the truth of these Irish orphan girls’ existence, and memorialise their triumph of survival over adversity” – Mike Richards, Melbourne, 2013