{"product_id":"the-country-schoolmaster","title":"The Country Schoolmaster","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA mesmerising reconstruction of a hundred-year-old true story Kate Grenville discovered in the archives\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e'I stood there holding the hundred-year-old letter with a feeling that was familiar from other archives, other bulging files of dog-eared paper. It was a blood-running-fast, itchy-palm, eyes-wide-open feeling of stumbling on something. A story ...'\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\nRummaging around in the archives one afternoon, Kate Grenville comes across an innocuous-looking file full of letters about a schoolteacher in country New South Wales. Intrigued, she keeps reading - and discovers a tale far more curious and complex than first appears. Was Joseph Connor savagely beating the students in his care? Or was he the victim of a small-town vendetta? And what went so terribly wrong between him and his daughter?\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\nUltimately, Grenville simply has to know: was Connor a victim or a villain? Part colonial cold case, part locked-room mystery, part the dance of a writer's imagination among facts and semi-facts, \u003ci\u003eThe Country Schoolmaster\u003c\/i\u003e is a book like no other. In it, the novelist comes to understand the seductive pleasure of story-making, but also its dangerous limitations.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\n'A genre-crossing work that examines the temptations and dangers of storytelling. The book is as much about the limits, comforts and seductions of constructing narratives as it is about creating a portrait of a man known only through letters.' -\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooks+Publishing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFormat: Paperback \/ softback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePages: 288\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eImprint: Black Inc\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSupplier: Penguin Random House Distribution\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSubjects: Code HBJM (scheme 12), Code NHM (scheme 93), Historical true crime; Colonial education; 19th century Australia; Australian literature; Schoolteacher history; Writer's process; Biographical investigation; Cold case; Historical mystery; Archival research; Colonial Australia; New South Wales history; country New South Wales; colonial history\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Black Inc","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67301411193081,"sku":"9781760646257","price":36.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0781\/4535\/6025\/files\/9781760646257.jpg?v=1791337883","url":"https:\/\/www.atticusbooksandart.com.au\/products\/the-country-schoolmaster","provider":"Atticus Bookshop Gallery","version":"1.0","type":"link"}