When all is said and done this is a strange little story. It is two stories in one; first that of the past where Sir John Franklin is the Lieutenant-Governor with Lady Jane Franklin of Van Diemen's Land (currently Tasmania, Australia) and how they come to 'adopt' a little Aborigine girl to prove that a savage can be civilized. Then there is the story of the future, one where Lady Jane, whose husband has now been missing for 9 nine years and she beseeches Charles Dickens to write an article squashing the horrible rumours of cannibalism among her husbands' last crew. This he does but the story does not centre on that but on the relationship between himself and Ellen Ternan.

The story set in the past of Sir John, Lady Jane and Mathinna, the little black girl, is very absorbing and could have been a book itself without the other half of the 'future' plot. What Lady Jane did from the goodness of her heart turned against all those concerned and became a tragedy. The added story of Dickens really felt out of place here; it's only connection to the other story is that Lady Jane appears at the beginning and at the end, plus the plot revolves around the time when Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins were putting on their play, No Frozen Deep, concerning a melodramatic love story set on an Arctic exploration. I can't say I enjoyed this second part of the story at all, it seemed pointless to the plot.

The book is told in chapters which suddenly switch back and forth from one plot to another going from the past to the future willy nilly, which creates a somewhat dizzying affect to the reader until one has settled down into the style. The writing is good, the story is fast-paced and easy to read and certainly a page-turner during the Mathinna scenes.

But ultimately the theme of this book is not the plot but that of the title, "wanting". Everyone in this story is wanting love. Sir John wants the love of a woman as Lady Jane makes it known early in the marriage that she finds wifely duties distasteful. Lady Jane wants maternal love, though she succumbs to her wifely duties at such times as necessary she is rewarded with being barren. Mathinna wants the love of belonging. She is a black who acts too white to be accepted by the blacks and feels the thoughts of a white but of course is black and will not be accepted by the whites . Then we have Charles Dickens who desperately wants the love of Ellen. A young, coquette who, in this book, is the first person to ever truly understand him. In truth their relationship has never really been firmly decided one way or the other.

An interesting, quick read but I found the whole Charles Dickens aspect of the story to be irrelevant to the plot and could have been left out entirely to leave a much more satisfying story of the Franklins' "experiment' in raising Mathinna and the tragedy it became.

There are several stories in this novel that have been laced together by the common theme of wanting.


Sir John Franklin is long missing on his fateful voyage to the Arctic in search of the Northwest passage. Charles Dickens is at a cross roads in his marriage. The Aboriginal population of Van Diemen's land (Tasmania) are being hunted to extinction and the remnant population has been isolated on Flinder's Island, while Franklin was the Governor.

Lady Jane Franklin wants Charles Dickens to squash the rumors of cannibalism that are being linked with her husband and his ship mates. She also wants a child, a daughter, and adopts an Aboriginal one when she is resident in Van Diemen's Land. The child, Mathinna, wants to contact her ancestors, mostly her father. She wants to live when so many of her people have died. Charles Dickens wants to know what is wrong in his marriage, wants his play "The Frozen Deep" to be a success and he wants Ellen Ternan, a young actress that is performing in the play.

What do I want? I want this book to be about Australia and its original population. In a large way it is. We clearly see the attitude toward the Aboriginal populations in the early and mid 19th century. They are viewed more as animals to be hunted and controlled rather than as a people with thousands of years of a rich history. Lady Jane is unsuccessful in her adoption of Mathinna mainly because she seems to have no idea how to mother a child. If she had hugged Mathinna as her first impulse suggested, the rest might have turned out much differently.

I have read a few books recently about the Indian Residential Schools in Canada and couldn't help but see the similarities. Children removed from their cultures and raised and educated by cold, impersonal strangers. Then they are thrust back into a society where they no longer fit neither as a white person nor as a native person.

At first I didn't understand why Charles Dickens was such a major character in the book. As I kept reading I understood that without his eloquent written support, the reputation of Sir Franklin would have been badly tarnished and that would have destroyed Lady Jane.

This is a wonderfully written book. I could easily imagine the desperation of Mathinna when her adopted life is taken from her. I could also see myself kicking my shoes off and curling my toes into the soil and getting the 'feel' of the land inside me. I would have like to learn more about Lady Jane and her interactions with Mathinna, but perhaps the act of adopting her and parading her to society was as deep as the relationship ever got.

As I was reviewing what I had written and thought about 'wanting' these lyrics by the Rolling Stones came to mind: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need"

I wonder if Mathinna finally got the contact with her father that she wanted?