Abstract
This article examines the competing narratives of settlement in Kate Grenville's 2005 novel, The Secret River. On the one hand are Aboriginal stories of violent encounters with settlers that are transmitted orally and are unwritten and, on the other, are those European historical accounts that seek to legitimate Australian settlement. In this novel, Grenville is trying to reconcile her own convict ancestor's implication in acts of Indigenous dispossession, while simultaneously acknowledging the strength and courage of such acts of settlement. This paper argues that any such reconciliation is fraught with complexities, as a contemporary perspective on the past attempts to balance blame and admiration. Grenville's novel itself is thus open to ambiguities and to accusations of “whitewashing” the past.