REVIEWS AND MEDIA MENTIONS OF ENDURANCE
Metaphor Issue 2 of 2016
“Griffiths effortlessly weaves together the fibres of his narrative with historic detail and an empathetic view of the adventurers who endured tremendous physical hardship to achieve extraordinary things……A gripping read for history lovers.”
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UNSW World Magazine ” Pageturners” “A Tale of Endurance” December 2015
A Tale of Endurance UNSW World December 2015
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Daily Telegraph 15 December 2015 “Staying in Books” “Gritty Tales of a Prickly Pioneer”
!["As I read I could hear Pop speaking and feel you really did get the measure of the man. I got quite emotional at times." Delia Shipley Granddaughter of Frank Hurley](https://www.timgriffiths.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/20151216_123941-e1454237636215-169x300.jpg)
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Good Reading Magazine September 2015
Griffiths writes splendidly and although anyone who has studied Shackleton’s life knows his crew were eventually rescued from an icy death, the novel maintains a high level of tension as Hurley describes their appalling wait for that rescue. (reviewed by Jennifer Somerville)
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Historical Novels Review September 2015
Author Tim Griffiths has connected strongly with the complex spirit of Hurley. Behind the swagger of the gutsy showman are echoes of the misfit, the stubborn loner ill at ease with privilege or bureaucracy. Even those who love him are destined to never truly hold him.
There is immediacy and reality here on every page. The imagery of clinging to life at the extreme margins of existence is intense. There are stomach-churning scenes of wholesale slaughter – animals and birds on the ice, human beings in the trenches – that contrast markedly with the mercenary self-interest of individuals not always as heroic under stress as formal accounts would have us believe.
This is a spectacular tale all around, a superb example of how a biographical novel can bring history alive for those who may find academic versions too dry or daunting. Very highly recommended.
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Hobart Mercury 26 September 2015
BOOK OF THE WEEK
In this debut novel, Tim Griffiths brilliantly merges these realities with imagination, colour and a suite of literary devices that creates a totally engaging thriller based on Hurley’s exploits. It has all the appearances of authenticity derived from diligent research and astute speculation that is enough to sustain credibility….
The telling here is engrossing. Despite this near miraculous escape, Hurley acknowledges his time on the Western Front in World War I as the most horrific and shocking he experienced. His determination to capture visible images revealing the human cost of the bloody conflict created constant confrontations with authorities. He persisted. They marginalised him. The overwhelming events of 1914-18 caused his work to be inadequately published or acknowledged. This caused him significant personal loss. The epilogue deserves special mention as it provides deeply personal insights into the photographer’s art and explains Hurley’s desire for perfection. (WARREN BREWER)
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Cargo Art Magazine September 2015
Griffiths highlights the unspoken class system that existed in early colonial Australia just as the Commonwealth came into existence. By sheer ambition and determination Hurley overcame the social disadvantages he experienced to join Mawson’s expedition to Antarctica in 1911 as the official photographer.
Griffiths concludes his imagined life of Hurley by highlighting Hurley’s pioneering work as a war photographer on the Western Front and the Middle East. If you want a vicarious, white knuckle ride then Endurance is for you. (PAUL NICHOLSON)
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The Reading Room
Endurance is an extraordinary debut novel that brings Hurley vividly to life—a man of outstanding bravery and achievements, yet complex, contradictory and fascinating. From Mawson’s and Shackleton’s legendary expeditions, to the mud and carnage of Flanders and the Somme, Tim Griffiths’ masterful narrative blends a novelist’s skill with meticulous research. Endurance is Hurley’s story, set against a backdrop of adventure, heroism and war.
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Booktopia Reader Review
Griffiths really gives the reader a sense of Frank Hurley, the man, and the photographer’s perspective of exploration and war is expertly conveyed…. The mix of fact and fiction forms a very readable account of the life of this legendary Australian, and it is an outstanding debut novel.
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Law Society Journal September 2015
Griffiths’ novel, which has been praised as “a very strong, quintessentially Australian novel” by journalist Peter FitzSimons, includes a good dose of informed imagination, bringing to life a hugely important historical figure about whom very little is known. “They call him ‘The man who made history’,” says Griffiths. (Claire Chaffey)
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Sydney Mechanics School of Arts October 2015
Tim Griffiths gives a stirring presentation on the life of wartime photographer, adventurer and pioneer Frank Hurley whose iconic images of WWI and the ill-fated Mawson and Shackleton Antarctic expeditions captured the world’s imagination.
A Frank Hurley expert, Griffiths covers Hurley’s incredible life including his running away from home age 12, being marooned with Shackleton in Antarctica (twice!), his experiences as the world’s leading wartime photographer in WW1 and WW2, and his conflicts with key historical figures such as Mawson, Shackleton, Charles Bean and others.
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ABC Radio National October 2015
Even if you don’t know his name, it’s likely you’ll know many of Frank Hurley’s photographs.
He took shots of Australian soldiers on the duckboards in World War l; he photographed expeditions in Antarctica, with Mawson coated in frost and a ship – The Endurance – stuck fast in the ice.
This last image inspired writer Tim Griffiths, who has written a fictional account of Hurley’s life, Endurance.
Among other things, it’s the story of Hurley’s run-ins with three formidable men from Australian history: Douglas Mawson, Ernest Shackleton and Charles Bean. Because Hurley was a scrapper, who never backed down from a fight.
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Daily Mail Monday, Nov 9th 2015
Hurley’s life has been documented in a new novel by Griffiths called “Endurance”, the name of the polar explorer ship whose crew became trapped for more than a year in the Antarctic.
In Griffiths’ fictional account, he traces Hurley’s rise to photographic prominence after running away from his family home in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe one night, at age 13.
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The Miner Newspaper 2 September 2015
Griffiths writes in the first person, so the reader is inside Frank Hurley’s head, moving from an uneducated youth, to a man of real substance…..Anyone interested in conflict against the elements or against an enemy will find this work well worth reading….
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