POWER MOVES
In A Great Hope, three women mourn the death of John Clare, fictional titan of the Labor party and trade union leader. Grace, immaculate but spiky, has lost her husband. Sophie, a loudmouthed blogger on the nascent internet, has lost her father. And Tessa – bright, beautiful, alone – has lost her lover.
“Sophie was the most fun to write, and Tessa is probably the most like me, and Grace is probably the one that I loved the most,” shares author Jessica Stanley, on the phone from London where she has lived for the past decade, a period of time during which she worked, on and off, on her debut novel. “Grace was flawed and imperfect but in the end I felt a real love for her.”
Each of thesestory, which takes place in Melbourne during a livewire moment in Australian politics: the 2007 election of Kevin Rudd, when everything felt shiny and new, and the following years of Labor infighting, when everything fell spectacularly to pieces. is part engrossing political drama, part mystery – how did John Clare really die? – and part sprawling, intergenerational family saga. We spoke to Stanley all about it.
