Fiji fiction captures lawless time

Margaret Gilbert writes historical fiction with accuracy and flair. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

No stranger to writing historical fiction, Margaret Gilbert's new book puts her characters in Fiji in the 1860s, a politically unstable, violent period in the history of the islands.
Storm Clouds Over Levuka is a realistic romance, straight from Margaret's educated imagination.

The book was published and printed by Copy Press NZ.

"I've been doing a lot more reading about Fiji recently," says Margaret. "This [book] finishes before Fiji became a Crown colony, so I know all that history."

Margaret was born in Fiji in 1937 and her family has lived there since the 1880s. She left at age 21 after marrying husband Garth. With a rekindled interest in the history of her birthplace, Margaret has captured the rough, lawless feel of the time, contrasting nicely with the character of her protagonist, Charlotte Swann, a new arrival to Levuka who is widowed within hours.

Margaret was sent to a Catholic convent boarding school when she was 5, graduating to another boarding school at 12. She lived in the midst of the Fijian culture but within the European colonialist bubble, something she became aware of much later. The prevailing attitude of whites toward the native population was encouraged by the colonial government, much as it was throughout the colonies, says Margaret. It's an attitude we find outdated and if not abhorrent, at least ridiculous today. Times and cultures have changed.

Her later awareness of those pre-war prejudices she has found liberating. It has made her realise that, even though she was educated in Fiji, there were things about the Pacific she was never taught. The slavery trade known as "blackbirding" and the treacherous "indentured labour" practice which lured Indians to Fiji to work in appalling conditions under false promises, for example.
The colonial government put a stop to blackbirding but did not do well by the Indian immigrants.
"The way they were treated was not good: almost as bad as the other system. It was horrifying because I'd never heard about it ... it took all this time for me to read about it."

Storm Clouds Over Levuka is Margaret's second historical novel set in 1860s Fiji, so with the research all done and the first book "out there" (with good reviews on Amazon), she needed a distraction — so the next book was born.

Margaret retains a strong interest in Fiji, its people and culture, although she hasn't visited the islands in 20 years. She remembers snippets of the language and reads about Fiji all the time, giving her new book the realism of experience and knowledge.

The setting of Storm Clouds over Levuka is the town in the title — "A town with a lot of very badly behaved white immigrants," says Margaret. "Cotton was booming. It's the story of this girl called Charlotte who goes to Fiji from Australia with her husband. They didn't listen to the warnings about it being such a bad place: they just wanted to buy a plantation and be rich. The day after they arrived, he is murdered, and it's no place for a woman on her own.
"All through that era, there was something hanging over Levuka politically. If I was a man I probably would have pictured it differently ... but it's a woman's point of view.
"It's got a lovely ending."

Storm Clouds Over Levuka can be ordered at Paige's Book Gallery.