Родни Холл0.0 "In this stunning new novel, Rodney Hall tells the story of Catherine Byrne, a nineteenth-century English missionary who travels to remotest Australia with her prophetic husband and his band of women disciples, the Household of Hidden Stars. Named Muley Moloch after the famous Irish lay preacher whose soul he is determined to save, he is a man of miraculous powers who leads his followers through severe hardship - shipwreck, disease and death - in their millenarian quest.
Set in 1863 at the dawn of the modern era (with photography, steam power and domestic machines such as the lawn mower revolutionizing people's understanding of their world) The Grisly Wife resonates with echoes and presentiments just beneath the surface of colonial Australia.
The Grisly Wife is the keystone to Hall's trilogy which begins with The Second Bridegroom and ends with Captivity Captive - surely destined to become one of the great works of Australian fiction."
