Christina Baker Kline - The Exiles

London, 1840. Evangeline, pregnant and falsely accused of stealing, has languished in Newgate prison for months. Ahead now lies the journey to Australia on a prison ship. 

On board, Evangeline befriends Hazel, sentenced to seven years' transport for theft. Soon Hazel's path will cross with an orphaned indigenous girl. Mathinna is 'adopted' by the new governor of Tasmania where the family treat her more like a curiosity than a child. 

Amid hardships and cruelties, new life will take root in stolen soil, friendships will define lives, and some will find their place in a new society in the land beyond the seas.

Comment: I got interested in this book mainly for the cover of a different edition (included below), which seemed pretty evocative. Somehow it captivated me and when I purchased the paperback book, the editions with that cover were simply more expensive, that is why I've settled for this one. Of course, I was also intrigued by the theme and even hoped for a bit of romance, although that isn't part of the list of labels.

In this historical fiction, we follow Evangeline Stokes as she is convicted of a crime, which she is innocent of, and how her journey takes her into a convict ship in the 1840s, destined to Australia. Evangeline discovers she is pregnant at the same time she is accused of stealing and is so easily convicted, but she still hopes to do her sentence and return to England one day. In prison and on the ship she learns precious lessons, makes friends such as Hazel, who was caught stealing and has a mother who abandoned her. At the same time, in what is now Tasmania, an Aboriginal young girl is taken from her people by the British governor of the island, as an experiment. How will the experience of the changes in their lives influence these characters?

I'm debating if I should include spoilers or not, because in my opinion, something happens in the middle of the story which is directly related to the blurb's information and that kind of caught me by surprise.

Well, I think it's best to explain my reaction, therefore:

Spoilers included!

The original cover did seduce me and I imagined that Evangeline and Hazel would become friends while on the ship and their lives in the penal colony would be harsh but they would help each other and, I assumed, they would end up living in the island for the rest of their lives. In a way, my idea wasn't too far off, but I must say that a detail disappointed me bit. It turns out that, despite the narrative perspective on Evangeline as main character, she dies drowned in the Indian ocean after a sailor with a grudge pushes her.

I was quite surprised, where would the "redemption" feature be if the character is dead? Obviously, she had just given birth and Hazel takes care of the baby girl Evangeline had delivered, so that is that. But it felt tremendously unfair this had to be the narrative choice, why use Evangeline as a character to follow so specifically? If feels like a failed drama moment... 

I should add that, to me, the reading of this book was both good and bad. Good in the sense that the story has its interest, it's easy and fluid and we want to root for the characters, we want them to succeed in their challenges and want them to overcome the obstacles in their way. Whether this had romance or not, the author could have added that personal touch without loosing any of the factual aspects included in the story which was certainly her goal.

However, this was also "bad" because of those factual aspects. I could grasp right away that the author had done intensive research (she does add a not at the end of the book explaining the process) and while this is valid and makes the story feel even stronger for its veracity and historical frame, there were many situations that felt like they had to be used to convey those things. The writing was a little too factual and filled with terrible situations and things a modern reader would want to be angry at, with reason of course, but still the text was a bit too detached and I felt this was a missed opportunity for a much more emotional and special story, if only more good things had balanced the bad.

I don't think some aspects of the epilogue were enough to give me this closure because the way it was written was very impersonal (to me).

I won't go into all of that, but as expected, there is a lot of unfairness, racism, cultural appropriation, misogyny, and overall bigotry in pretty much every situation depicted in the story. The good things aren't many, and while this means the author is certainly being realistic, between this and her writing style, the story telling isn't that appealing, to be honest. Since it's fluid and things aren't overly complex, it's endurable I'd say, but it felt a little disappointing that the characters didn't really have a worthy happy end, even though the epilogue does hint at that for most of the ones we were invested in.

Of course, part of my disappointment is due to the author's choices and I'd have preferred something else to have been done with this plot. But I also keep thinking, why not a well researched fiction work instead, if the aim was to be so factual and focused on realistic events? It's totally correct to chose this, but then why center this in fictional characters, why not use real ones, documented and fictionalize things without going too far? By using a romanced fictional base, I feel we lost on a possible more engaging novel, even with the terrible things which would have been used anyway.

Anyway, it didn't take me too long to read, so that is that, I suppose, but yes, I expected much more from this, something more epic or special in the end.

Grade: 6/10