First World War

An Attractive Naivety is a historical novel of war, identity, and endurance, set against Australia’s first half-century as a nation.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Australia is newly federated – ambitious, proud, and unsure of itself. The novel traces that coming of age through the lives of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. From plague-stricken Sydney to the battlefield of Palestine, from the Cowra Breakout to the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it follows the pressures that shaped both private lives and public myths.