Girl Waits with Gun – Amy Stewart
I saw Amy Stewart at the Perth Writers Festival and was intrigued, so I popped over to the festival book shop and picked up a copy. I enjoyed it – it is well-written and entertaining (plus I learnt things)
Here is the blurb …
Constance Kopp doesn’t quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family — and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared.
I wish I had read it before I went to the talk because I am intrigued by the research. It wears the research lightly – it is never intrusive – but you feel like you are at the Kopp farm, or downtown Paterson, or waiting with a gun for the mysterious women in black. There is mention of clothes (I always like that), food, transport… essentially documenting a vanished way of life.
I love the fact that all three of the Kopp sisters are individuals – Constance, our heroine, Norma with her pigeons and her meaningful silences and Fleurette, melodramatic and flighty.
More reviews …