At the beginning of the twentieth century, the son of an English lord settles in Australia and marries an indigenous woman. It is an age when interracial relationships are not only misunderstood, but result in family conflict, disgrace, and disinheritance. Then the Christian missionaries come. They destroy the timeless culture and beliefs of Australia's indigenous people, leaving them to flounder in a soup of the white man's religious beliefs. The great-grandmother's telling of the family story is the nourishment that holds it together through war, and the constant battle to adjust and exist in a white man's world. The Christian missionaries will not tolerate any belief or view other than their own. Amid all this religious and racial conflict, the great-grandchildren adjust and eventually prosper. The young man distinguishes himself in the conflict in Vietnam, while his sister finds her place and flourishes in the food and catering industry. From the Boer War through two World Wars, the Vietnam War, and the last decades of the twentieth century, Matriarch takes readers on an eye-opening journey through Australian history, culminating in a serial murder mystery that opens old family wounds.
