The Floating Garden
Sydney, Milsons Point, 1926. Entire streets are being demolished for the building of the Harbour Bridge. Ellis Gilbey, landlady by day, gardening writer by night, is set to lose everything. Only the faith in the book she’s writing, and hopes for a garden of her own, stave off despair. As the tight-knit community splinters and her familiar world crumbles, Ellis relives her escape to the city at sixteen, landing in the unlikely care of self-styled theosophist Minerva Stranks.
When artist Rennie Howarth knocks on her door seeking refuge from a stifling upper-class life and an abusive husband, Ellis glimpses a chance to fulfil her dreams. The future looms uncertain while the past stays uncannily in pursuit.
This beautiful novel evokes the hardships and the glories of Sydney’s past and tells the little-known story of those made homeless to make way for the famous bridge. Peopled by bohemians and charlatans, earthy folk and fly-by-nighters, The Floating Garden is about shedding secrets, seizing second chances, and finding love amongst the ruins.
2015 | 9781742199368 | Paperback | 256 pages
Awards
Shortlisted, Small Press Network MUBA prize 2016
Reviews
…a beautiful meditation on grief, guilt, and regret, set against the backdrop of Milsons Point, Sydney, 1926.
—Judges’ report 2016 MUBA prize.
…evocatively portrays both the difficulties and the sense of promise in the post-war era… at times it reminded me of Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet. ⋆⋆⋆⋆ (four stars)
—Books+Publishing
…beautifully detailed… finely crafted…an elegy for the forgotten….a subversive counter-history to the tumult of rapid progress.”
—The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Read the full review here.
I enthusiastically recommend this book … a new type of historical fiction. ⋆⋆⋆⋆ (four stars)
—MD Brady’s US blog: Me, You and Books.
This captivating debut… teems with charlatans, eccentrics and those doing it tough in a time of hardship and prejudice. Yet Ashmere weaves a sense of hope and redemption as her characters seek to rediscover their true selves. ⋆⋆⋆⋆ (four stars)
—The Advertiser.
I loved the vivid descriptions of the market and the ferries; the sights and scents of lush plant life; the mud, slush and sordid decay of the houses … the shadowy dangers that lurk in the cramped dark streets… Without idealising poverty, Ashmere depicts this Sydney as a place for the marginalised and eccentric.
—Lisa Hill (Top 10 Books 2016) ANZlitlovers
Ashmere does for the underprivileged of 1920s Sydney what Ruth Park did for the 1950s in Harp in the South… both exude warmth and sympathy for their motley crew of marginalised characters, and both are valuable for their social history.”
On the one hand, it’s a rather beautiful story amid the natural decay of a part of town and the progress that displaces the people in those community, and on the other hand, it’s a story about setting yourself free and working to stay that way.
The magical thing about it all is that this is a story about running away and about finding yourself much later in life than most of these stories usually take place. Rennie and Ellis are not young women but needing to be in the right place for you isn’t something that goes away after your twenties.
Read the full review here.— Feminism, Yoga, and Other Balancing Acts
The Floating Garden is a beautifully written, gently humorous and highly detailed slice of history. It also has an absorbing story-line which kept me turning the page.
—Lisa Walker
This novel is driven by character rather than plot. I like people and so I enjoy these kinds of books, but what I enjoyed even more was the evocation of 1920s Sydney and the wealth of sensory description – not just visual details, but touch and smell as well...
—Jessica White
It's impressive that these disparate narratives come together so naturally to enrich each other. What a wonderful book.
—Booklog for Charlotte