Book takes: Turbulent Threads unravels Dunedin’s polite past
Karen McMillan: "What I really valued from writing this book was reading about so many extraordinary people". Photos / Supplied
Karen McMillan had the idea to write a novel set in 1890s Dunedin more than a decade ago. The central idea was to follow the story of a young woman during this time of social progress, her life counterpointed by William Larnach and his troubles later in life. It would be a love story but also a glimpse into the colourful social and cultural layers of the era.
When McMillan was awarded a Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage Residency, she was able to devote herself to the extensive research needed to make the novel a reality. Her book Turbulent Threads has just been published. Here, McMillan shares three things she hopes readers will take away from it and something she learnt while writing it.
The multicultural Devil’s Half-Acre in Victorian Dunedin
In the gold rush days, there was an area of Dunedin that was aptly named The Devil’s Half-Acre. With its ramshackle huts and small lanes, it was rife with crime, opium dens and unsavoury characters, and it rightfully deserved its infamous reputation. But by the 1890s, it was still poor but now a thriving community in Dunedin, where Scots, Irish, Chinese, and Lebanese people lived side by side, often new immigrants supporting each other in their endeavours. There was a palpable sense of community and people working together, setting aside any previous grievances from their homelands to start afresh in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Women getting the right to vote
Reading that New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to pass a law giving women the right to vote in the parliamentary elections could seem academic. But I hope when reading Turbulent Threads, readers will have a sense of how groundbreaking this was, the excitement of the women living at the time, and what a monumental piece of legislation this was for women then and now.
The 1880s in New Zealand was a time of depression and hardship, but the 1890s were exciting and prosperous times, especially for young women. Never before had they had so many opportunities in life, and I have tried to capture what it would have been like living in Dunedin in this decade.
Turbulent Threads celebrates the pivotal role women played in one of New Zealand’s most turbulent eras. My main character Greer’s journey stands as an imagined account that captures the essence of a historical milestone when women’s voices rose above the tumult.
William Larnach and his final years
Greer and most of the characters in this book are entirely fictional, but her story is counterpointed by the real-life story of William Larnach and his troubles, his marriage to his third wife Constance, scandalous rumours of an illicit love affair, and his suicide in Parliament in 1898.