Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

Book Description

Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.

During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.

Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.

In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline brings to life five women in nineteenth century Australia.  All faced similar hardships struggling for redemption and freedom in this new society. They were mistreated and taken from a culture they knew. These women were all brought to their new lives against their will but showed strength and courage.

Evangeline, orphaned after her Vicar father died, found a job as a Governess.  But the stepson living in the manor seduces her and shows her affection by giving her a family heirloom ring.  The maid, Agnes, finds it and accuses her of stealing it.  To make matters worse, she pushes Agnes and is now also accused of attempted murder.  Found guilty she is sentenced to fourteen years in an Australian prison.

Olive, also a prisoner, befriends Evangeline. Accused of stealing, she received a sentence of seven years and transport to the Australian prison.  She was street wise and knew what was needed to survive.

Hazel, a sixteen-year-old, was accused of stealing a silver spoon and sentenced to seven years in the Australian prison. She is a skilled midwife and herbalist, bartering her skills for goods and favors.

All three women are transported to Australia on the ship, Medea.  They must struggle with sea sickness, avoiding sailor’s advances, and the harshness of the journey.  Evangeline also must deal with being pregnant, the father being the stepson.  She knows she will give birth to her baby while at sea.

Mathinna, the Aboriginal native, an orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land the setting for the Australian prison. She is used by the Governor’s wife as an experiment in civilization, trying to make her into a “lady.” Her life intersects with Hazel’s about two-thirds of the way through the book.  Although Mathinna is not a convict, she like the other women is a prisoner with no control over their life.

Caleb Dunne is the doctor on the ship.  Because of a misdiagnosis of a prominent woman, he decided to escape and signed up for the ship.  Shy and feeling out of place he first forges a friendship with Evangeline, both enjoying the discussion of books.  But later he and Hazel become friendly after he realizes her worth as a mid-wife.  Their relationship becomes stronger as the story progresses.

The story fascinatingly allows the reader to follow the lives of these women in 19^th Century Australia as they forge a new life with new opportunities.  People will have their eyes open to pieces of history that are still pertinent today. It is obvious the author did her research and intertwined it into a riveting novel. Readers’ take a journey with these women and root for them as they gain strength and resilience.

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Elise’s Author Interview

Elise Cooper:  How did you get the idea for the story?

Christina Baker Kline: I was inspired by a small article I read in a newspaper about criminal ships.  The point of the article is how convicts then had it harder than today.  I thought how parts of my life intersected with this story. I had a life-changing six-week Rotary fellowship to Australia. I taught in women’s prisons.  I also wrote a book with my mother about the second wave of the women’s movement.  A lot of the issues in this book are relevant today including the needed reform of the criminal justice system and the role of women in society.  I think it is a hopeful story.

EC:  Why the map in the front of the book?

CBK: I wanted to show the route from London to Van Diemen’s Land, renamed Tasmania.  It is from the mid 19^th Century.  I hope readers get a sense of the wide-open places including the placement of the ports, an understanding of the geography. This is the setting where the convict women stayed. 

EC: Why the Lowreenne Tribe?

CBK: I went to Australia and Tasmania before Covid.  I learned when I arrived about the Aboriginal people who were essentially being pushed into open air concentration camps.  By the late 1860s there was no full-blooded Aboriginal people left in Tasmania, out of thousands.  I felt it would be irresponsible if I did not address it.  Mathinna was a real person who died tragically at the age of seventeen.  Everything I described in the novel actually happened to her.

EC:  How would you describe Evangeline?

CBK:  She was the perfect person to lead the reader into the story, in some ways a stand-in for the reader.  Evangeline was naïve and emersed herself in books.  The convict world was a shock for her.  She was inquisitive, thoughtful, brave, and very lonely.  She did not know how to survive as a convict because she was not tough so depended on Olive and Hazel.

EC:  How about Hazel?

CBK: She had this “superpower” of healing; a knowledge learned as a mid-wife.  Hazel knew how to balance things really well.  She was savvy, caring, and angry at being abandoned.  I think she goes through a change in the novel.  At first, she was a mistrusting teenager, betrayed by her mother.  As the story unfolds, she begins to trust more people and comes to love the baby, Ruby.

EC:  How would you describe Olive?

CBK: Funny, irreverent, a comic relief, and does what it takes to get by in prison. 

EC:  What about the relationship between Dr. Dunne and Hazel?

CBK: He is called the “hot doctor.” As with Hazel, he also changes over time.  He went on the convict ship because he needed work.  At first, he befriends Evangeline who is more like him.  Yet, over time Hazel and he realize they share an interest in medicine.  He comes to respect her.  All the class restrictions fall by the wayside.

EC:  How would you describe the doctor?

CBK:  A complex character.  At times he could appear to be a jerk because he was dismissive, a snob, but overall caring.

EC:  What was the role of the Quakers?

CBK:  They believed the convicts were worthy of redemption.  Elizabeth Fry was a real person who helped them.  She was very judgmental because she thought they were sinners.  She gave them a sense of dignity and treated them as human beings but was never 100% accepting. 

EC: There are similarities with today’s topics?

CBK:  Most of these women sent to Australia committed crimes of poverty.  They stole to feed themselves and their family since there was no social safety net.  These women fell through the cracks.  The criminal justice system was brutal then. Back then the poor had no rights and were considered expendable.  Legal counsel was only for the rich and the poor had no recourse. Evangeline was an example of someone without allies, resources, and representation.

EC:  Why did the British courts sentence these women to prisons in Australia?

CBK:  The goal of the British government was to populate Australia. It had a ratio of nine men to every woman.  They were sent there under flimsy pretenses. Today, 20% of Australian descendants come from convicts.  The Australian personality was forged within their convict past: irreverent, willing to take changes, and never took themselves very seriously.  When out of prison, these women had opportunities they would never have had in Britain.

EC:  Why the drowning scene?

CBK:  I wanted to show how no life is sacred.  I read books on drowning.  Sebastian Junger who wrote the non-fiction book, The Perfect Storm describes in detail how someone drowns.  This was very helpful to me with those scenes in the book.

EC:  A powerful quote, “People we love live inside us, even after they’re gone.” Please explain.

CBK: In my novels I often talk about this. In Orphan Train the book begins with the line, “I believe in ghosts.  They are the ones who haunt us.  They are the ones that left us behind.” With both quotes I thought about the tree metaphor. I love the idea of years that pass, giving us a core of strength.  The convict women were alone and had to draw on what they had internally.  Even though they lost someone they still had a piece of them in their memories.

EC:  What about your next projects?

CBK:  My next book, probably out in 2023 will be set in the Civil War era in North Carolina.  This novel has been optioned for a TV series by Bruna Papandrea.  I will be an executive producer.

THANK YOU!!