The Grisly Wife


The Grisly Wife is a 1993 Miles Franklin literary award-winning novel by the Australian author Rodney Hall.
The Miles Franklin Award Judges' Report called it "a novel with a rather surprising vision."
This novel is the second book in The Yandilli Trilogy, though the third to be published, following the novels Captivity Captive in 1988, and The Second Bridegroom in 1991.

Synopsis

Catherine Byrne marries self-proclaimed prophet Muley Moloch and leaves 19th-century England with him and his eight female disciples to search for paradise on earth in the wilds of Australia. But things do not work out as planned, as a shipwreck, illness and death cause the small group to fracture.

Critical reception

Jeff Doyle in The Canberra Times noted: "Hall is not so basic nor simplistic to provide a kind of allegorical reading of these issues under his stories. No, such a naive, perhaps crassly simple, view is the job of a reviewer bent on hinting at the multiple ideas running through the book."

Awards