Always Greener

The true story behind Restless Dolly Maunder

De: Kate Grenville

Narrado por: Kate Grenville

'If there’d been a gun in her hand at that moment she knew she’d have shot them.... She’d been so pleased with little Dolly Russell, the good life she’d got for them all. Thought she had it made, had got her hands at last on the levers of her life.... Now it turned out that all that, being so pleased with herself, was no more real than a puff of smoke.'

Always Greener is an exquisite portrait of Kate Grenville's complex, conflicted grandmother, who she feared as a child and only in adulthood came to understand. Born in rural Australia, Dolly Russell becomes a successful businessperson, mother and troubled wife. Then came the depression, bankruptcy and World War I. Yet, in a way, those disasters freed her. They allowed her to use her intelligence and ambition to make a space for herself in a man’s world.

With all the pathos and subtlety that defined Grenville’s Australian classics such as Lilian’s Story and her Booker-shortlisted The Secret River, Always Greener tells the story of a generation of women often forgotten at our own cost.

©2021 Kate Grenville (P)2021 Audible Australia Pty Ltd.

Good story gave you lots to think about

I really enjoyed the book, but I hate the sound effects you insist on putting in there. Books don’t have a sound effects and it absolutely makes it difficult for me to hear the sound effects are louder than the words. Please stop that.

Bittersweet & Beautiful

Dolly, a clever girl tethered by her time & place, is elegantly bought to life through Kate’s compelling prose. Dolly could have been my grandmother, same era, same hard scrabble childhood, same ambition, same struggles, same sadness. I just hope I told my grandma I loved her.
Kate’s writing is so strong & evocative, there was no need for the sound effects.

With Age We See More Clearly

As an author who also writes about my grandmother's difficult life, I feel the author's dawning understanding and respect for her grandmother's determination to rise above the obstacles placed in her life. No one could have narrated this story better than the author herself.

The storyline

Good narration, sensitive period piece told in a way that felt authentic. Highly enjoyable and thoroughly recommended

Compassionate personal family memoir

Erudite authentic researched but exquisite invention of characters from such limited historical records very personal