Over the course of a long, sleepless night, Elizabeth Macquarie composes an epitaph for her husband, Governor Lachlan Macquarie. From widowhood on the Isle of Mull, she revisits their part in the tumultuous life of colonial Australia.

In Mrs. M, Luke Slattery creates a wonderfully vivid and subtly subversive voice. Elizabeth Macquarie is a fine observer – a singular, independent woman with an acerbic wit and hidden passions. She chronicles the world of early Sydney with a refreshing clarity. With boundless belief in reform and rehabilitation, the Macquaries are a partnership of dreamers caught in an ongoing war of attrition, with a privileged few who wish Australia to remain a place of punishment and cheap labour. Pivotal to their dreams is Francis Greenaway, the convict architect, who designs many of the early buildings that are intended to fill the population with civic pride and ambition. Though a loving dutiful wife, in Slattery’s telling of Elizabeth’s story it is with Greenaway that Elizabeth finds her true soulmate. Sydney’s lush natural environment provides a sensual backdrop for the increasing sexual tension in their relationship.

As Slattery himself acknowledges, he takes liberties with the facts of Elizabeth and Greenaway’s relationship. But who is to say what really happened between them? For this reader, the fabrications were very satisfying – he manages to bring to life a part of Australian history that I’ve always found a bit impenetrable. In Mrs. M, Slattery not only gives us an epitaph for Lachlan Macquarie: we come away with an epitaph for the entire era and the bit-players just outside the spotlight of official history.

Susan Stevenson works as a bookseller at Readings Malvern.