McConnochie, Mardi 1971-

views updated

McCONNOCHIE, Mardi 1971-

PERSONAL: Born February 2, 1971, in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. Education: University of Adelaide, B.A. (English literature; first class honors); University of Sydney, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Home—Sydney, Australia. Agent—c/o Author Mail, HarperCollins Publicity, P.O. Box 321, Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia.

CAREER: Novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, and editor.

WRITINGS:

Coldwater: A Novel, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

Author of several plays produced in Australia; author of scripts for television series Home and Away.

SIDELIGHTS: Australian writer Mardi McConnochie produced her debut novel, Coldwater, in 2001, while she was completing her doctoral work at the University of Sydney. Coldwater drew attention from several reviewers, including Geoff Campbell, a contributor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who called the novel "a spell-binding work of fiction." Campbell went on to write that Coldwater is a clear indication that McConnochie "has the tools and skill necessary for a long and illustrious writing career."

McConnochie's studies have included extensive research into the lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, the famous literary siblings who published such works as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey in the mid-1800s. In the fictional Coldwater, McConnochie paints a romanticized version of the Brontë sisters in their youth, though she changes their last name to Wolf. Instead of living in a Yorkshire parsonage, where the real Brontës grew up, McConnochie depicts Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Wolf growing up on an island penal colony off the coast of Australia, where their father is warden. The similarities between the Brontë sisters and the Wolf sisters extend beyond the names. Like the Brontës, all three Wolf sisters have literary aspirations, and pass their time by writing. McConnochie patterned all three characters on the research she conducted into the lives and careers of the Brontës. For example, Charlotte is more analytical and introspective than her sisters, characteristics scholars have attributed to Charlotte Brontë. McConnochie even includes an "historical note," in which she offers discussion about the Brontë sisters.

After McConnochie conceived the idea for Coldwater, she pitched it to Deb Futter, an editor for the Random House. Futter was impressed both by the idea and the completed manuscript, especially the way McConnochie developed the three sisters. "They're used as a kind of dark conceit in a book that is quite gothic and also utterly page-turning," Futter told John F. Baker of Publishers Weekly. On Futter's advice, the publisher bought the North American rights to the work. Several literary critics also noted McConnochie's re-imagined version of the Brontë sisters. "McConnochie's attempt at imaginative Brontë revisionism has some commendable aspects, notably her depiction of the siblings' different personalities," wrote a contributor for Publishers Weekly. "McConnochie spins a good yarn, and it is curiously fascinating to watch as she weaves so many elements of Brontana into her novel," Merle Rubin wrote in the Los Angeles Times. William Ferguson of the New York Times Book Review called the work a "clever mingling of history and fiction."

The novel begins in 1847 on the island of Coldwater, where the Wolf family has lived for some eight years. With little else to do, the Wolf sisters, who are surrounded by ocean and are thus the island's prisoners, begin to write novels, with the hope of getting them published so they can leave Coldwater. McConnochie divides the narration among the three sisters, with the sensitive Charlotte carrying most of the load. In addition to running the penal colony with a ruthless hand, Edward Wolf, the girls' father, thwarts their literary aspirations.

The story takes a dramatic turn when Wolf decides to bring an Irish prisoner into the family home in an attempt to turn the man into a model prisoner. When Emily falls in love with this man, the family begins to splinter, with each sister choosing a different path. Ellen R. Cohen, writing for Library Journal, concluded that McConnochie wrote "the story of the Wolf girls with compassion and understanding."