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Edith Trilogy #3
Cold Light
It is 1950, the League of Nations has collapsed and the newly formed United Nations has rejected all those who worked and fought for the League. Edith Campbell Berry, who joined the League in Geneva before the war, is out of a job, her vision shattered. With her sexually unconventional, husband, Ambrose, she comes back to Australia to live in Canberra.
Edith now has ambitions to become Australia's first female ambassador, but while she waits for a Call from On High, she finds herself caught up in the planning of the national capital and the dream that it should be 'a city like no other'.
When her communist brother, Frederick, turns up out of the blue after many years of absence, she becomes concerned that he may jeopardise her chances of becoming a diplomat. It is not a safe time to be a communist in Australia or to be related to one, but she refuses to be cowed by the anti-communist sentiment sweeping the country.
It is also not a safe time or place to be 'a wife with a lavender husband'. After pursuing the Bloomsbury life for many years, Edith finds herself fearful of being exposed. Unexpectedly, in mid-life she also realises that she yearns for children. When she meets a man who could offer not only security but a ready-made family, she consults the Book of Crossroads and the answer changes the course of her life.
Intelligent, poignant and absorbing, Cold Light is a remarkable stand-alone novel, which can also be read as a companion to the earlier Edith novels Grand Days and Dark Palace.
Edith now has ambitions to become Australia's first female ambassador, but while she waits for a Call from On High, she finds herself caught up in the planning of the national capital and the dream that it should be 'a city like no other'.
When her communist brother, Frederick, turns up out of the blue after many years of absence, she becomes concerned that he may jeopardise her chances of becoming a diplomat. It is not a safe time to be a communist in Australia or to be related to one, but she refuses to be cowed by the anti-communist sentiment sweeping the country.
It is also not a safe time or place to be 'a wife with a lavender husband'. After pursuing the Bloomsbury life for many years, Edith finds herself fearful of being exposed. Unexpectedly, in mid-life she also realises that she yearns for children. When she meets a man who could offer not only security but a ready-made family, she consults the Book of Crossroads and the answer changes the course of her life.
Intelligent, poignant and absorbing, Cold Light is a remarkable stand-alone novel, which can also be read as a companion to the earlier Edith novels Grand Days and Dark Palace.
719 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
24 people are currently reading
674 people want to read
About the author
Frank Moorhouse
54 books55 followersFrank Thomas Moorhouse AM (21 December 1938 – 26 June 2022) was an Australian writer. He won major Australian national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay, and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and also translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian, and Swedish.
Moorhouse was perhaps best known for winning the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Dark Palace; which together with Grand Days and Cold Light, the "Edith Trilogy" is a fictional account of the League of Nations, which trace the strange, convoluted life of a young woman who enters the world of diplomacy in the 1920s through to her involvement in the newly formed International Atomic Energy Agency after World War II.
The author of 18 books, Moorhouse became a full-time fiction writer during the 1970s, also writing essays, short stories, journalism and film, radio and TV scripts.
In his early career he developed a narrative structure which he has described as the 'discontinuous narrative'. He lived for many years in Balmain, where together with Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, he became part of the "Sydney Push" - an anti-censorship movement that protested against rightwing politics and championed freedom of speech and sexual liberation. In 1975 he played a fundamental role in the evolution of copyright law in Australia in the case University of New South Wales v Moorhouse. - Wikipedia
Moorhouse was perhaps best known for winning the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Dark Palace; which together with Grand Days and Cold Light, the "Edith Trilogy" is a fictional account of the League of Nations, which trace the strange, convoluted life of a young woman who enters the world of diplomacy in the 1920s through to her involvement in the newly formed International Atomic Energy Agency after World War II.
The author of 18 books, Moorhouse became a full-time fiction writer during the 1970s, also writing essays, short stories, journalism and film, radio and TV scripts.
In his early career he developed a narrative structure which he has described as the 'discontinuous narrative'. He lived for many years in Balmain, where together with Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, he became part of the "Sydney Push" - an anti-censorship movement that protested against rightwing politics and championed freedom of speech and sexual liberation. In 1975 he played a fundamental role in the evolution of copyright law in Australia in the case University of New South Wales v Moorhouse. - Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
March 15, 2013
Frank Moorhouse's trilogy of novels about Edith Campbell Berry is surely one of Australian literature's finest achievements.
In 1993's Grand Days, we met 26-year-old Australian Edith, on her way to take up a posting at the League of Nations. She was bright with potential; passionately dedicated to the idea of the League as a means to prevent war.
The sequel, Dark Palace, opened in the shadow of an ailing marriage and followed the slow creep of World War II and subsequent demise of the League.
Cold Light comes full circle in more ways than one, as Edith returns to Australia, hoping for a diplomatic appointment.
Again, she is on the brink of building a new life in a new city—this time, a fledgling Canberra. And her enthusiasm for the sophistication of Europe in Grand Days is matched by her disquiet at 'this slap-dash country of such unhappy food'. The naive optimism of her youth is replaced by a weary earned cynicism.
And while the first two novels followed Edith's contributions to building a new world, this one follows the evolution of a new Australia, as it gradually gains confidence in its own identity.
Grand Days plunged the reader directly into the action by introducing us to Edith's soul-mate and guiding influence, the 'sexually unconventional' Ambrose Westwood, as they met on the train to Geneva. We got to know the characters—and the dynamic between them—by eavesdropping on their first conversation.
Similarly, Cold Light opens with Edith (now married to Ambrose) re-encountering her long-lost brother Frederick, a Communist organiser, including us from the start in what will be the defining relationship of the novel. It's a tactic that works beautifully. Moorhouse has an easy way with dialogue, and Edith's familiar wit contrasts perfectly with Frederick's determined solemnity, immediately highlighting the distance between them.
Frederick is a vehicle for telling the story of Communism in Australia—and for exploring the way the past informs the present in unpredictable ways. Edith observes that her brother's 'fiery humanity' comes 'from the dinner table of their childhood'. Their dedication to working for a fairer world is the same, though the political systems they support are very different. But they are united, for different reasons, in fighting Menzies' attempted ban of the Communist Party.
One of the great joys of the Edith trilogy is its dual focus on the domestic and the world stage, and the way Moorhouse deftly dissects—and relishes—the politics of both spheres. The novels are threaded with both personal and political intrigue, including the delicate dance of attraction and of course espionage.
'I never thought of myself as tragic,' Edith reflected in the closing pages of Dark Palace, 'but I do now.'
Indeed, in Cold Light Edith is a tragic figure: a woman whose choices have led her back to an Australia that is simply not ready for her. Her hopes for a position to match her talents lead instead to a glorified secretary's position, where despite a kind of special status, she remains maddeningly on the fringes of events.
Edith does well for a woman of her time and place. But looking back on the ambition and promise of her 26-year-old self, her talents are criminally wasted.
Her personal life, too, is plagued by lost opportunities. At times, the reader is like the audience of a pantomime (No Edith! Don't go through that door!). Her fallibility is as attractive as it is infuriating. Subversively, it's Edith's attempts to conform to a defined idea of womanhood that most lead her astray.
Cold Light is a study in apparent contradictions. A character-driven novel that also features a city—Canberra—as one of its main characters. Storytelling on a grand scale that uses small details (like the significance of desk management) to speak volumes about its characters and setting. A novel that is joyful, devastating, deeply touching, wickedly funny—and smuggles in serious political messages with the entertainment.
But of course, life contains all these contradictions too. And that is, above all, what the Edith trilogy is: a nuanced portrait of changing times, as reflected through the life of one woman who lives it as fully as she knows how. With verve and dash and integrity.
In Edith Campbell Berry, Frank Moorhouse has arguably created one of the most complex and intriguing women in Australian fiction. It has been a pleasure knowing her.
This review was first published/broadcast on ABC Radio National's The Book Show.
In 1993's Grand Days, we met 26-year-old Australian Edith, on her way to take up a posting at the League of Nations. She was bright with potential; passionately dedicated to the idea of the League as a means to prevent war.
The sequel, Dark Palace, opened in the shadow of an ailing marriage and followed the slow creep of World War II and subsequent demise of the League.
Cold Light comes full circle in more ways than one, as Edith returns to Australia, hoping for a diplomatic appointment.
Again, she is on the brink of building a new life in a new city—this time, a fledgling Canberra. And her enthusiasm for the sophistication of Europe in Grand Days is matched by her disquiet at 'this slap-dash country of such unhappy food'. The naive optimism of her youth is replaced by a weary earned cynicism.
And while the first two novels followed Edith's contributions to building a new world, this one follows the evolution of a new Australia, as it gradually gains confidence in its own identity.
Grand Days plunged the reader directly into the action by introducing us to Edith's soul-mate and guiding influence, the 'sexually unconventional' Ambrose Westwood, as they met on the train to Geneva. We got to know the characters—and the dynamic between them—by eavesdropping on their first conversation.
Similarly, Cold Light opens with Edith (now married to Ambrose) re-encountering her long-lost brother Frederick, a Communist organiser, including us from the start in what will be the defining relationship of the novel. It's a tactic that works beautifully. Moorhouse has an easy way with dialogue, and Edith's familiar wit contrasts perfectly with Frederick's determined solemnity, immediately highlighting the distance between them.
Frederick is a vehicle for telling the story of Communism in Australia—and for exploring the way the past informs the present in unpredictable ways. Edith observes that her brother's 'fiery humanity' comes 'from the dinner table of their childhood'. Their dedication to working for a fairer world is the same, though the political systems they support are very different. But they are united, for different reasons, in fighting Menzies' attempted ban of the Communist Party.
One of the great joys of the Edith trilogy is its dual focus on the domestic and the world stage, and the way Moorhouse deftly dissects—and relishes—the politics of both spheres. The novels are threaded with both personal and political intrigue, including the delicate dance of attraction and of course espionage.
'I never thought of myself as tragic,' Edith reflected in the closing pages of Dark Palace, 'but I do now.'
Indeed, in Cold Light Edith is a tragic figure: a woman whose choices have led her back to an Australia that is simply not ready for her. Her hopes for a position to match her talents lead instead to a glorified secretary's position, where despite a kind of special status, she remains maddeningly on the fringes of events.
Edith does well for a woman of her time and place. But looking back on the ambition and promise of her 26-year-old self, her talents are criminally wasted.
Her personal life, too, is plagued by lost opportunities. At times, the reader is like the audience of a pantomime (No Edith! Don't go through that door!). Her fallibility is as attractive as it is infuriating. Subversively, it's Edith's attempts to conform to a defined idea of womanhood that most lead her astray.
Cold Light is a study in apparent contradictions. A character-driven novel that also features a city—Canberra—as one of its main characters. Storytelling on a grand scale that uses small details (like the significance of desk management) to speak volumes about its characters and setting. A novel that is joyful, devastating, deeply touching, wickedly funny—and smuggles in serious political messages with the entertainment.
But of course, life contains all these contradictions too. And that is, above all, what the Edith trilogy is: a nuanced portrait of changing times, as reflected through the life of one woman who lives it as fully as she knows how. With verve and dash and integrity.
In Edith Campbell Berry, Frank Moorhouse has arguably created one of the most complex and intriguing women in Australian fiction. It has been a pleasure knowing her.
This review was first published/broadcast on ABC Radio National's The Book Show.
November 14, 2011
Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse is third in his ‘Edith’ trilogy comprising Grand Days and Dark Palace. I read these years ago when they were first published, and enjoyed both the strong characterisation and the piquancy of reading about a woman’s career in the failed League of Nations of the interwar years. Cold Light can be read entirely independently of the companion novels: it follows Edith’s chastened return to Australia as the Cold War tightened its grip. The novel begins with Edith and her cross-dressing husband Ambrose living in the limbo of a Canberra hotel while they sort out their respective careers.
While in Europe Edith had some trouble being taken seriously as a diplomat because of her gender, it was no preparation for the indignity of being under-employed in unrepentantly sexist Australia. Edith’s journey in this trilogy moves from youthful optimism and a sense that all things are possible in Grand Days to disillusionment in Dark Palace: Cold Light follows her middle-age into a sense of loss and frustration with cramped opportunities. Add to that the awkwardness of having a brother who’s an active member of the Communist Party and her own desires for sexually adventurous behaviour, and she has a problem indeed.
In some ways Cold Light reminded me of The Memory Room, by Christopher Koch. That was a fascinating psychological study of an Australian spy, offering glimpses into the minds of people who are not what they seem. It showed how the habit of necessary constraint in all relationships, especially personal ones, is a barrier to full humanity, and Moorhouse shows too how a double life of any kind impinges on natural human behaviour.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/05/06/co...
While in Europe Edith had some trouble being taken seriously as a diplomat because of her gender, it was no preparation for the indignity of being under-employed in unrepentantly sexist Australia. Edith’s journey in this trilogy moves from youthful optimism and a sense that all things are possible in Grand Days to disillusionment in Dark Palace: Cold Light follows her middle-age into a sense of loss and frustration with cramped opportunities. Add to that the awkwardness of having a brother who’s an active member of the Communist Party and her own desires for sexually adventurous behaviour, and she has a problem indeed.
In some ways Cold Light reminded me of The Memory Room, by Christopher Koch. That was a fascinating psychological study of an Australian spy, offering glimpses into the minds of people who are not what they seem. It showed how the habit of necessary constraint in all relationships, especially personal ones, is a barrier to full humanity, and Moorhouse shows too how a double life of any kind impinges on natural human behaviour.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/05/06/co...
January 31, 2021
‘You are just the spirit Canberra needs.’
In 1950, with the collapse of the League of Nations, Edith Campbell Berry is out of a job. The newly formed United Nations has rejected all of those who worked and fought for the League, including Edith who joined the League in Geneva before the war. Edith returns to Australia, with her husband ‘the sexually unconventional‘ Ambrose Westwood, to Canberra, where she hopes to obtain a diplomatic posting.
Edith becomes involved in planning for the national capital. She is also concerned that the emergence of her communist brother Frederick and his girlfriend Janice will jeopardise her chances of a diplomatic posting. Both threads were of particular interest to me: I had relatives who were members of the Communist Party of Australia during the 1950s, and I have lived in Canberra since 1974.
Edith is a fascinating character. Australia is not yet ready to make the best use of her skills, nor would her unconventional marriage to Ambrose be acceptable in the conservative Australia of the era. Edith is mindful of exposure. And then she meets another man, and her life changes. At times Edith tries to conform, with a (third) conventional marriage, including an uneasy role as stepmother but she remains on the fringes of power, with contacts and connections, with little direct influence. Frederick’s story brings the history of Communism in Australia to life. Frederick and Edith are quite different, but they both fight Menzies’s attempt to ban the Communist Party. And Ambrose, who returns to Britain, is still part of Edith’s circle.
I enjoyed the way Mr Moorhouse overlays Edith’s life over the development of Canberra and emergence of an Australian identity. This is a novel in which small details are as important as the larger backdrop. The attention Edith pays to the organisation of her office, and of her desk, and the details of a party at University House contrast with the wider political issues and the building of Canberra.
I have not yet read the first two books in this trilogy ‘Grand Days’ and ‘Dark Palace’. I will because I am intrigued.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In 1950, with the collapse of the League of Nations, Edith Campbell Berry is out of a job. The newly formed United Nations has rejected all of those who worked and fought for the League, including Edith who joined the League in Geneva before the war. Edith returns to Australia, with her husband ‘the sexually unconventional‘ Ambrose Westwood, to Canberra, where she hopes to obtain a diplomatic posting.
Edith becomes involved in planning for the national capital. She is also concerned that the emergence of her communist brother Frederick and his girlfriend Janice will jeopardise her chances of a diplomatic posting. Both threads were of particular interest to me: I had relatives who were members of the Communist Party of Australia during the 1950s, and I have lived in Canberra since 1974.
Edith is a fascinating character. Australia is not yet ready to make the best use of her skills, nor would her unconventional marriage to Ambrose be acceptable in the conservative Australia of the era. Edith is mindful of exposure. And then she meets another man, and her life changes. At times Edith tries to conform, with a (third) conventional marriage, including an uneasy role as stepmother but she remains on the fringes of power, with contacts and connections, with little direct influence. Frederick’s story brings the history of Communism in Australia to life. Frederick and Edith are quite different, but they both fight Menzies’s attempt to ban the Communist Party. And Ambrose, who returns to Britain, is still part of Edith’s circle.
I enjoyed the way Mr Moorhouse overlays Edith’s life over the development of Canberra and emergence of an Australian identity. This is a novel in which small details are as important as the larger backdrop. The attention Edith pays to the organisation of her office, and of her desk, and the details of a party at University House contrast with the wider political issues and the building of Canberra.
I have not yet read the first two books in this trilogy ‘Grand Days’ and ‘Dark Palace’. I will because I am intrigued.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
September 22, 2013
There's a great feeling of personal loss at the completion of a reading experience as long and meaty as the Edith trilogy - quite aside from feelings arising from the nature of this book's ending.
Edith, for me, raises two melancholies.
One: she reminds me of my late grandparents, who belonged to a strand of Australian WASP culture in which intelligence, serious-mindedness and engagement with the international world were considered the compulsory heart of moral personhood. I don't see this strand much in my parents' generation, and it's a great loss. On the other hand this generation could also be terribly rigid, snobby and overly focussed on outward forms in a way that served as unconscious class-policing. It sometimes seemed they only believed in the equality of all men who managed olive pips correctly at pre-dinner nibbles. I suppose we see this in Janice's alternating attraction to and disgust with Edith.
Two: her professional and intimate difficulties as a too-smart, too-ambitious woman are crushingly familiar. And likewise the difficulties of managing authority and aging from within a feminine persona. There is something about the patriarchal erotic mystique that relies on a difference in moral stature between the parties, in the man's favour. What to do, as a woman, when your stature is too high? Can you really, lastingly, love someone who requires you to pretend to be smaller than you are?
Edith, for me, raises two melancholies.
One: she reminds me of my late grandparents, who belonged to a strand of Australian WASP culture in which intelligence, serious-mindedness and engagement with the international world were considered the compulsory heart of moral personhood. I don't see this strand much in my parents' generation, and it's a great loss. On the other hand this generation could also be terribly rigid, snobby and overly focussed on outward forms in a way that served as unconscious class-policing. It sometimes seemed they only believed in the equality of all men who managed olive pips correctly at pre-dinner nibbles. I suppose we see this in Janice's alternating attraction to and disgust with Edith.
Two: her professional and intimate difficulties as a too-smart, too-ambitious woman are crushingly familiar. And likewise the difficulties of managing authority and aging from within a feminine persona. There is something about the patriarchal erotic mystique that relies on a difference in moral stature between the parties, in the man's favour. What to do, as a woman, when your stature is too high? Can you really, lastingly, love someone who requires you to pretend to be smaller than you are?
March 31, 2012
an impressive opening, and the ending still lingers, but what about those 700 odd pages in between? weight is what i think of with this book: its physical mass matched by the weight of all that research which mired the narrative into a sludge that was almost inert at times. i love history, and i love books which use invented characters and places them in the midst of a real historical context. but research needs to be worn lightly, and this indeed mr moorhouse does not do. oh not indeed. this reader, at least, felt bludgeoned at times as his characters seemed merely mouthpieces for various ideas that concerned its author. but despite my qualms about narrative pace, and whether i was engaged by any of the characters – the central character of Edith Berry was particularly unconvincing, least of all as a woman – i was still impressed by the intellectual scope and ambition of this book. it is so rare in australia to read a book of ideas: even rarer to find a writer who dares to write one.
December 2, 2019
After the previous two books I found this one a bit uninspiring. It seemed to lack some of the intrigue and excitement of the earlier books. I found a settled, middle aged Edith a bit of a bore.
I did find the ending wrapped the series up and that was one of the positives of the book.
I did find the ending wrapped the series up and that was one of the positives of the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 24, 2023
The trilogy is complete. What a stunning life main character Edith lived. Frank Moorhouse really takes us through an epic journey in history that was educational and inspiring.
I will be sad to say goodbye to Edith and Ambrose.
I will be sad to say goodbye to Edith and Ambrose.
July 30, 2012
I enjoyed this in parts. Overall a good read and a reasonable ending to the Edith trilogy. Being born and bred in Canberra, I particularly enjoyed the domestic scenes and the sections about the planning of Canberra. I grew up there in the 50s so I know the place extremely well. My parents would have known many of the real people in the book, although they probalby didn't socialise with them as they (my parents) were catholics and as Edith observes on several occasions, Catholics were beyond the pale in those days. My father desperately wanted a large house in Forrest to accommodate his large (not suprising!) family and to see Edith getting one even fictionally was somewhat galling!!
However,I agree with other reviewers about the length - is Edith really worth more in one volume of a trilogy than Tolstoy gave Anna Karenina? Too many pages recording Edith's thinking on international issues, eg, in the last couple of chapters. For me a lot of it didn't ring true as the thoughts which might have been passing through her mind - it seemed more like authorial speechifying. I didn't need the parents' funeral orations either. Tighter editing needed all around - too much in the book because the research had been done.
However,I agree with other reviewers about the length - is Edith really worth more in one volume of a trilogy than Tolstoy gave Anna Karenina? Too many pages recording Edith's thinking on international issues, eg, in the last couple of chapters. For me a lot of it didn't ring true as the thoughts which might have been passing through her mind - it seemed more like authorial speechifying. I didn't need the parents' funeral orations either. Tighter editing needed all around - too much in the book because the research had been done.
September 3, 2012
Part of the Edith trilogy, this volume is set in Canberra, where Edith slowly comes to terms with her failed hopes and reluctant aging. She and her husband, Ambrose, come to live in Canberra where Edith hopes to find a new career at the level of her role in The League of Nations. In the meantime she works planning of the national capital and the dream that it should be 'a city like no other'. Her communist brother, Frederick, wants to be close, but she is worried that this may put she and Ambrose in danger as communism is frowned upon in Australia. There is the interesting mixture of personal and historical events as in earlier novels of the trilogy, and these events have a uniquely Australian context which is interesting to me. There is an air of personal regret for wrong choices and a sad conclusion about the best one can hope from marriage over time, although there is a hint that somehow her relationship with Ambrose was one of real closeness and trust. This view of life is mirrored by the clear statement that political man cannot be asked (as in League of Nations) to act for the good of all, but the world can only exist in a state of distrust, within a framework of principles, expectations, ways to check and be accountable, and sanctions.
January 3, 2012
Last of the Edith Campbell Berry series. Edith and Ambrose are back in Australia in Canberra, where Edith is hoping to secure a posting with the government. This proves more difficult than she hopes, though she is offered a position with the planning department where her input helps in the design of the new capital. She and Ambrose eventually separate because of fears that his predilection for female clothing will become known. Her brother, Frederick, and his girlfriend Janice also complicate matters because of their membership with the Communist party. Edith marries again, to Richard, who is involved with the uranium lobby and she becomes a spokesman for the government about the potential and hazards of this new resource. Eventually, under Whitlam, she is made an eminent person and while overseas at a conference on uranium, her car is attacked in Lebanon, where she dies. This is a fascinating novel for those interested in the history of Australia, its politics, the development of the national capital, and for the role of women in Australia. A great book.
January 2, 2016
Last of the "Edith" trilogy, and a disappointing end. Having previously read both Grand Days and Dark Palace, I did enjoy the story, because I wanted to know what happened to Edith after her time in Europe, however if I had read this as a stand alone novel I would have been very disappointed. The book is extremely well researched, but on occasions the intrigues of the Australian Communist Party were too much. Certainly the beginning and the end of the novel were the best.
Having completed the trilogy I was very disappointed when I read the postscript, as this put a totally different perspective on the story, and was one which I think was not necessary, and is playing with my thoughts of whether Edith was a strong woman or not.
Having completed the trilogy I was very disappointed when I read the postscript, as this put a totally different perspective on the story, and was one which I think was not necessary, and is playing with my thoughts of whether Edith was a strong woman or not.
January 31, 2013
I have given this five stars because it is the end of a fabulous trilogy. Well written and the background research must have been enormous and so thorough. Moorhouse has created a wonderful character in Edith; brave and intelligent, foolish and foolhardy, a snob, an absolute stickler for correct protocol and always wonderfully vain. A literally breath-taking ending to an absorbing story. I can see a mini-series in the making with Cate Blanchett and Guy Pearce as the older Edith and Ambrose, just hope someone is inspired to make it. I wish Frank Moorhouse had been teaching me Australian History in Year 12 instead of the mind-numbingly boring old witch I had.
December 31, 2015
I've spent every summer for the last three years with Edith - and it is so sad to say goodbye to her now. This was a wonderful finale to the trilogy - such a great balance between being educated about the intricacies of diplomatic life in the post war period to following the highs and lows of Edith's life journey. She overthinks everything and is such a perfect mix of the intelligent woman of the world and a naïf - Moorhouse has created a memorable and highly appealing character who will stick with me for a long time. Highly recommended!
September 20, 2012
Didn't enjoy this one anywhere near as much as previous two books in The Edith Trilogy. I had to start it twice before I could get into it. I felt the same story could've been achieved with 20% less words and if he said the word 'Bloomsbury' one more time, I was going to scream. Maybe this would be a better 'holiday read' when you've got plenty of time to plough through all those pages.
May 18, 2016
Now that I have finished the third book I miss Edith. I grew with her personally and professionally, so this is a kind of grieving.
I can't understand why Frank Moorhouse didn't win more acclaim for this book.
An extraordinary feat of research, writing, character development and plot.
I can't understand why Frank Moorhouse didn't win more acclaim for this book.
An extraordinary feat of research, writing, character development and plot.
December 11, 2025
I've now completed my journey through the peripatetic life of Edith Campbell Berry, Cold Light being the final part of The Edith Trilogy (Grand Days and Dark Palace being the other two). Cold Light details the final part of Edith's life: she has returned to Australia with her husband Ambrose, who is working for the British High Commission. She is without a position after the dissolution of The League of Nations, but has hopes of working for the Department of External Affairs. Instead she gets offered a lowly job with the commission that is building Canberra, which, in her usual Edith way, she turns into something much bigger than it should be. She has reconnected with her brother who is an organizer for the Communist Party of Australia, and develops a friendship with his partner, Janice. This part of the novel revolves around the push to ban the Communist Party, the Petrov Affair, and the Soviet secret speech where Khrushchev denounced Stalin's Cult of Personality.
Edith falls for Richard, a public servant she had met at a dinner at the Lodge, and leaves Ambrose (who then leaves Australia) to marry him. He has two sons, and Edith has dreams of being a wife and mother, dreams which are soon shattered, as they reject her and the marriage becomes loveless.
In her work life Edith becomes a special advisor to the PM (Menzies) on nuclear policy. In true Edith fashion, she is full of grand ideas, some of which she manages to get up as policy (she also finally manages to get Lake Burley Griffin filled with water!). Then Gough Whitlam appoints her special envoy and she attends an IAEA conference with Richard, with whom she wishes to have a dalliance, although he never follows through with action, despite mutual flirting. It is in Lebanon, on a tour with him after the conference, where she meets her end during a militia ambush.
Cold Light runs through a lot of Australian post-war history, and Edith gets to hob-nob with many people from the cultural and political milieu of the time, whether as partner of Ambrose, or through her brother's communist connections, or through her own socialising. The book also has longueurs where Edith reflects on her life, her affairs, or on the state of world politics, and whether we as a species deserve to live a good life.
Where interludes of this type in the previous two books did have some interest, in Cold Light they seem less interesting or believable (it may be that because I know more about the history of the times that Edith is living through in this book that I feel some of the explication is overly simplistic). Her reflections on her love life now that she's well into middle-age also seem out-of-place; I felt that a woman of her age and experience would know more about herself than Moorhouse lets her know.
Unlike the first two books, where I just read and read, I found myself having to push through some sections of this volume; the writing just didn't grab me as much. I also found that the devices that drove the story along had far less felicity than they should have. Richard's wife dying in a car crash, the speed with which Edith got rid of Ambrose and took up with Richard, the shunting off of both her brother (expelled from the Party and off to Sydney) and her step-sons (off to boarding school) were clunky and more obvious than they needed to be.
Where the first two novels of the trilogy were full of adventure and high hopes, Cold Light sees the diminution of both Edith's hopes and capabilities, but also I think of Moorhouse's ability to keep the writing up to the high standard of the first two books. There is something here, but it is less that what has come before.
That stated, The Edith Trilogy is a fascinating story of our times, and also the creation of an intriguing literary character. It will be interesting to see if these books will stand the test of time - they are certainly what Moorhouse will be remembered for.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Edith falls for Richard, a public servant she had met at a dinner at the Lodge, and leaves Ambrose (who then leaves Australia) to marry him. He has two sons, and Edith has dreams of being a wife and mother, dreams which are soon shattered, as they reject her and the marriage becomes loveless.
In her work life Edith becomes a special advisor to the PM (Menzies) on nuclear policy. In true Edith fashion, she is full of grand ideas, some of which she manages to get up as policy (she also finally manages to get Lake Burley Griffin filled with water!). Then Gough Whitlam appoints her special envoy and she attends an IAEA conference with Richard, with whom she wishes to have a dalliance, although he never follows through with action, despite mutual flirting. It is in Lebanon, on a tour with him after the conference, where she meets her end during a militia ambush.
Cold Light runs through a lot of Australian post-war history, and Edith gets to hob-nob with many people from the cultural and political milieu of the time, whether as partner of Ambrose, or through her brother's communist connections, or through her own socialising. The book also has longueurs where Edith reflects on her life, her affairs, or on the state of world politics, and whether we as a species deserve to live a good life.
Where interludes of this type in the previous two books did have some interest, in Cold Light they seem less interesting or believable (it may be that because I know more about the history of the times that Edith is living through in this book that I feel some of the explication is overly simplistic). Her reflections on her love life now that she's well into middle-age also seem out-of-place; I felt that a woman of her age and experience would know more about herself than Moorhouse lets her know.
Unlike the first two books, where I just read and read, I found myself having to push through some sections of this volume; the writing just didn't grab me as much. I also found that the devices that drove the story along had far less felicity than they should have. Richard's wife dying in a car crash, the speed with which Edith got rid of Ambrose and took up with Richard, the shunting off of both her brother (expelled from the Party and off to Sydney) and her step-sons (off to boarding school) were clunky and more obvious than they needed to be.
Where the first two novels of the trilogy were full of adventure and high hopes, Cold Light sees the diminution of both Edith's hopes and capabilities, but also I think of Moorhouse's ability to keep the writing up to the high standard of the first two books. There is something here, but it is less that what has come before.
That stated, The Edith Trilogy is a fascinating story of our times, and also the creation of an intriguing literary character. It will be interesting to see if these books will stand the test of time - they are certainly what Moorhouse will be remembered for.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 21, 2018
Two of my favourite Australian novels have long been Frank Moorhouse’s Grand Days and Dark Palace. I loved these tales of Edith Campbell Berry’s doings at the League of Nations from the 1920s through WWII, so, a few months ago when I learned that there was a third book, Cold Light, I was very excited. That excitement persisted through the many weeks it took to obtain the book from Australia – it not being sold in Canada, where I live.
My excitement, after opening the book, did not persist. I suppose the title should have given me some indication what I was in for, but Dark Palace, for all the disappointment of the League’s failure, never approached the degree of darkness that envelops our Edith when she returns to Australia in 1950. Any hope I had entertained that she might restart her brilliant career were soon dashed – as I, and certainly Edith, ought to have known. Australia circa 1950 was not the place for an ambitious career-minded woman. I can understand why she might have wanted to give it a go. But having surveyed the Canberra landscape, why (independently wealthy) Edith and Ambrose did not immediately repack and head for the airfield, is beyond me. Instead she stays and endures two decades of small town, small minded life in an environment totally alien to her sensibilities. In the process she achieves, seemingly, very little (other than influencing Menzies to create Lake Burley Griffin). Not only that but she ditches Ambrose in favour of a man she doesn’t even seem to like much (and who never achieves the distinction of a surname), and acquires two step sons who don’t like her and who quickly disappear (to be disparaged several hundred pages later for their habit of employing used knives in the jam jar – admittedly disgusting).
Things liven up and we are granted a measure of hope in the last 100 pages when Gough Whitlam makes Edith an Eminent Person and she zooms off t0 Europe. Back in her natural milieu I’d expected something to happen. Other than a mild flirtation with a young Australian diplomat, nothing does. And then - spoiler alert – Edith goes to Israel where, on the way to civil war torn Lebanon, she is shot dead.
Cold Light contains much that is interesting about the development of Canberra, the attempt to ban the Communist Party and the exploitation of uranium. And there are some wonderful vignettes – including Ambrose’s burlesque drag act in 1950s Canberra (the mind boggles).
But while I will undoubtedly re-read Grand Days and Dark Palace, I’m not going to return to Cold Light.
My excitement, after opening the book, did not persist. I suppose the title should have given me some indication what I was in for, but Dark Palace, for all the disappointment of the League’s failure, never approached the degree of darkness that envelops our Edith when she returns to Australia in 1950. Any hope I had entertained that she might restart her brilliant career were soon dashed – as I, and certainly Edith, ought to have known. Australia circa 1950 was not the place for an ambitious career-minded woman. I can understand why she might have wanted to give it a go. But having surveyed the Canberra landscape, why (independently wealthy) Edith and Ambrose did not immediately repack and head for the airfield, is beyond me. Instead she stays and endures two decades of small town, small minded life in an environment totally alien to her sensibilities. In the process she achieves, seemingly, very little (other than influencing Menzies to create Lake Burley Griffin). Not only that but she ditches Ambrose in favour of a man she doesn’t even seem to like much (and who never achieves the distinction of a surname), and acquires two step sons who don’t like her and who quickly disappear (to be disparaged several hundred pages later for their habit of employing used knives in the jam jar – admittedly disgusting).
Things liven up and we are granted a measure of hope in the last 100 pages when Gough Whitlam makes Edith an Eminent Person and she zooms off t0 Europe. Back in her natural milieu I’d expected something to happen. Other than a mild flirtation with a young Australian diplomat, nothing does. And then - spoiler alert – Edith goes to Israel where, on the way to civil war torn Lebanon, she is shot dead.
Cold Light contains much that is interesting about the development of Canberra, the attempt to ban the Communist Party and the exploitation of uranium. And there are some wonderful vignettes – including Ambrose’s burlesque drag act in 1950s Canberra (the mind boggles).
But while I will undoubtedly re-read Grand Days and Dark Palace, I’m not going to return to Cold Light.
September 3, 2023
I read the Edith trilogy after hearing Annabel Crabb talk about Moorhouse. I wanted to get a sense of what the fuss was about!
I find the series intriguing. It’s written pacily, which sucks you in, and the locations - from Geneva to the South Coast to Canberra - feel richly detailed and made alive with context. Having spent a lot of time in Canberra, Cold Light was particularly enjoyable in its depiction of the early years of the capital. The petty office politics carried out in scrappy demountables gave me a good laugh.
I sometimes felt like Edith herself was painted as too much of a superwoman. Particularly in Grand Days, it felt like she went from strength to strength: strategic fait accompli piling up in her wake, any misstep solely to inform her coming success. To some extent, this must have been necessary for Moorhouse to keep the narrative trotting swiftly through big historical events - a structural choice that seemed jarring at first but became more understandable as I read along.
I found Edith most rich when she was conflicted and frustrated, when making (frankly bad) decisions in her personal life and when reflecting on them later. She’d make a choice which she’d illustrate as smart and thoroughly “correct”, only to realise, years later, that it was the wrong choice, completely, and she wasn’t that type of woman (a.k.a, the type that marries self-centred and controlling men to win conventionality and social approval). This was where Moorhouse’s talent, and the rationale behind his structuring and the pace, was most apparent to me. You can only have those terrible (for Edith) and delicious (for the reader) realisations with a significant passage of time.
A read that pays off, if in instalments. And that ENDING - !
I find the series intriguing. It’s written pacily, which sucks you in, and the locations - from Geneva to the South Coast to Canberra - feel richly detailed and made alive with context. Having spent a lot of time in Canberra, Cold Light was particularly enjoyable in its depiction of the early years of the capital. The petty office politics carried out in scrappy demountables gave me a good laugh.
I sometimes felt like Edith herself was painted as too much of a superwoman. Particularly in Grand Days, it felt like she went from strength to strength: strategic fait accompli piling up in her wake, any misstep solely to inform her coming success. To some extent, this must have been necessary for Moorhouse to keep the narrative trotting swiftly through big historical events - a structural choice that seemed jarring at first but became more understandable as I read along.
I found Edith most rich when she was conflicted and frustrated, when making (frankly bad) decisions in her personal life and when reflecting on them later. She’d make a choice which she’d illustrate as smart and thoroughly “correct”, only to realise, years later, that it was the wrong choice, completely, and she wasn’t that type of woman (a.k.a, the type that marries self-centred and controlling men to win conventionality and social approval). This was where Moorhouse’s talent, and the rationale behind his structuring and the pace, was most apparent to me. You can only have those terrible (for Edith) and delicious (for the reader) realisations with a significant passage of time.
A read that pays off, if in instalments. And that ENDING - !
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 22, 2022
How tiresome Edith became... a view of her "failed" life seen in Cold LIght.
So enjoyed first two books of the triology when Edith was explorying, adventurous and "out there". Now, out of Geneva she has an overly inflated view of herself which was just awful. Upon returning to Australia she is not given the "respect" or "credit" which she believes she is due believing that her international experience surpasses everything. And so...she continues to blunder about, makes bad decisions and whilst continuing to think she is really above everyone else. In the Cold Light of day...it is not a pretty picture
So enjoyed first two books of the triology when Edith was explorying, adventurous and "out there". Now, out of Geneva she has an overly inflated view of herself which was just awful. Upon returning to Australia she is not given the "respect" or "credit" which she believes she is due believing that her international experience surpasses everything. And so...she continues to blunder about, makes bad decisions and whilst continuing to think she is really above everyone else. In the Cold Light of day...it is not a pretty picture
May 4, 2023
Moorhouse has crafted a masterpiece around the a career of a woman in a man’s world, and the making of a new nation in a world dominated by Europe. In Cold Light, Moorhouse astutely diagnoses the problematic nature of Australian identity.
September 29, 2025
3.5 stars: my least favourite of the trilogy, mostly because it felt as if Edith betrayed herself and her ideals in mid age. Even still, she kept me on my toes! I feel like I know her mind in such depth, it’s impressive - struggling to believe this isn’t a real person.
August 30, 2022
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022...
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022...
May 2, 2015
When I fell in love with the protagonist of the Edith trilogy, Edith Campbell Berry in the first book, Grand Days, it was a during a cold, rainy winter. I was reading it on the train to a new job, and I felt nervous and excited and contemplative. It was a wonderful parallel to Edith on the train to her new position in the League of Nations. Anyway, I decided I loved the book so much, that I would wait a year until I read the next one, so I could evoke that same feeling again. So now, two years later I've finished the final book, Cold Light, and I am impressed and devastated and unfulfilled.
I spent a good deal of time at the beginning of Cold Light feeling frustrated at being stuck in Canberra - everything seemed smaller and less dramatic. However that actually came to be the plot of the book, so it was good to feel that I suppose. There is something about Edith's dissatisfaction that speaks to me, the drive she has to change things, to question things, to make mistakes. Not spoiling anything, I felt like this book was dangerous with mistakes, and while I felt upset by a lot of them, particularly in response to her marriages, I feel they were dealt with in character.
The ending shocked me. I don't know quite how to feel about it yet, and I feel cheated and yet ready to concede that it was perhaps the point to feel cheated, that I shouldn't have expected things to round themselves out all nicely? I don't know. I also know I never wanted it to end, so how do you finish something like that? Altogether, an amazing, amazing experience, and I can't wait to read them all again in a few years.
I spent a good deal of time at the beginning of Cold Light feeling frustrated at being stuck in Canberra - everything seemed smaller and less dramatic. However that actually came to be the plot of the book, so it was good to feel that I suppose. There is something about Edith's dissatisfaction that speaks to me, the drive she has to change things, to question things, to make mistakes. Not spoiling anything, I felt like this book was dangerous with mistakes, and while I felt upset by a lot of them, particularly in response to her marriages, I feel they were dealt with in character.
The ending shocked me. I don't know quite how to feel about it yet, and I feel cheated and yet ready to concede that it was perhaps the point to feel cheated, that I shouldn't have expected things to round themselves out all nicely? I don't know. I also know I never wanted it to end, so how do you finish something like that? Altogether, an amazing, amazing experience, and I can't wait to read them all again in a few years.
February 4, 2013
Biography of Edith Berry, a woman of little discernable talent or experience, used as a spy for British intelligence.
First obtaining employment at the League of Nations, an international assembly formed to advance the imperial interests of Britain and France, she was moved to Australia to spy on her brother, an official of the Australian Communist Party (the real reason for his expulsion from the ACP).
Her marriage to a homosexual man is shown to parade Australian pariochialism – even though this offence was far more actively pursued by the police in his native Britain.
Opposing the referendum to ban the ACP – which would have led to the exposure of the British and Australian secret police operations – she later worked in the construction of Canberra, one of the most heavily bugged cities in the world.
Obtaining a “non-official” office next to the prime minister of Robert Menzies, she worked ostensibly to establish the nuclear industry in Australia, while also spying on department heads to ensure their compliance to the government.
Pursuing a romance with a younger married man, whose wife died in a mysterious car crash only a month before she married him, she continued a frosty relationship with his children before they were sent off to boarding school.
On the change to a Labor government in 1972, she was granted a position on the International Atomic Agency, ensuring that only governments aligned to US and British interests were able to develop nuclear industries. She died in Israel during an “unofficial” visit.
First obtaining employment at the League of Nations, an international assembly formed to advance the imperial interests of Britain and France, she was moved to Australia to spy on her brother, an official of the Australian Communist Party (the real reason for his expulsion from the ACP).
Her marriage to a homosexual man is shown to parade Australian pariochialism – even though this offence was far more actively pursued by the police in his native Britain.
Opposing the referendum to ban the ACP – which would have led to the exposure of the British and Australian secret police operations – she later worked in the construction of Canberra, one of the most heavily bugged cities in the world.
Obtaining a “non-official” office next to the prime minister of Robert Menzies, she worked ostensibly to establish the nuclear industry in Australia, while also spying on department heads to ensure their compliance to the government.
Pursuing a romance with a younger married man, whose wife died in a mysterious car crash only a month before she married him, she continued a frosty relationship with his children before they were sent off to boarding school.
On the change to a Labor government in 1972, she was granted a position on the International Atomic Agency, ensuring that only governments aligned to US and British interests were able to develop nuclear industries. She died in Israel during an “unofficial” visit.
January 31, 2016
She's a wonderful heroine & in this 3rd & final leg of her journey, Edith Campbell Berry's internal dialogue is going a bit mad! Frank Moorhouse has made a great series from her journey: as ingenue with grand plans to make the world a better place, to ambitious young diplomat learning how to have the greatest influence in the League of Nations, to disillusioned woman watching her career and influence crumble. Her arrival back in Australia with her "tail between her legs" but hope of finding her place as THE female diplomat the country has been waiting for, makes fascinating reading & a great history lesson - covering communism, uranium mining, nuclear weapons & disarmament, the development of our National Capital & domestic politics in the era of Menzies to Whitlam. This is flavoured with the sort of constant self-examination you would expect from Edith - about love, ageing, sex, marriage, independence, proper underwear, fine fashion, proper etiquette, appropriate office furnishings, etc! All delivered with Mr Moorhouse's beautiful prose, very fine research, and enhanced with a blend of real & fictitious characters. I have loved Edith & will miss her!
January 6, 2016
This is the conclusion of the ‘Edith’ trilogy. The first two novels dealt with Edith’s work for the League of Nations and her two marriages - I found them fascinating. This third novel is set in Canberra in the 1950s and explores the development of the capital and the political turmoil over the operations of the Australian Communist Party. The other thread explores Edith’s relationship with her bisexual husband, Ambrose, and her third marriage to Richard, a Canberra public servant. I very much enjoyed the first part of the novel (partly because it covered the period when I first came to Canberra as a teenager) but the latter part became somewhat dreary - more history than fiction and unconvincing about Edith’s new love affair and marriage. The trilogy is, however, a significant body of work which seriously addresses a number of world and Australian political events and issues. Three and a half stars.
July 4, 2012
I would like to read a female reviewer's opinion about how well Moorhouse has 'got it right' in this female character. I was daunted by the size, 719 pages, but once in to it thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought the following passage from p 617 simply excellent. Maybe it shows my age.
"
As the memories streamed through her mind, she heard herself make a sound she had never made before. Nearly a sigh. She knew instantly what it was – a sound from the creaking timbers of age. The sounds of old people were like those made by sleeping dogs as they remember forgotten bones and bad fights and times when they should have barked but did not.
She had never made that sound before, and she had no intention of making it again.
"
This was my first read of the "Edith" trilogy. Now I must read the first two.
"
As the memories streamed through her mind, she heard herself make a sound she had never made before. Nearly a sigh. She knew instantly what it was – a sound from the creaking timbers of age. The sounds of old people were like those made by sleeping dogs as they remember forgotten bones and bad fights and times when they should have barked but did not.
She had never made that sound before, and she had no intention of making it again.
"
This was my first read of the "Edith" trilogy. Now I must read the first two.
March 30, 2013
This is the third book in the series and I have had the good fortune to be able to read them back to back. They are marvellous and Edith Campbell Barry is wonderful. I found the last part of the book to be a bit cramped as if Moorhouse was trying to get his opinion on every political and social matter mentioned and I was aware that I was coming to the END. How does one end a book of such a rich and varied life? I want to find out more about Moorhouse himself now, the man behind the woman'.
I am so pleased he has done all that wonderful research and educated me about a time which is actually quite recent. I feel like having a glass of sherry myself now having lived through almost a century of life via a wonderful leading lady.
I am so pleased he has done all that wonderful research and educated me about a time which is actually quite recent. I feel like having a glass of sherry myself now having lived through almost a century of life via a wonderful leading lady.
March 23, 2016
Moorhouse has given us a great character in Edith Berry. She is passionate in her beliefs. In the first two books she was passionate in wanting the League of Nations work. In the third and final book she is passionate about planning a great city, then in the nuclear disarmament and other environmental causes. She was passionate in her love life. But she was not a family person and kept looking for the next opportunity.
In 'Cold Light' there is some great sections on the early days of Canberra, the paranoia about the Communist Party, the short-lived support for nuclear energy as a panacea and the recognition of the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear waste. In the middle of all this there are tedious passages on Edith's love life and her infatuations.
In 'Cold Light' there is some great sections on the early days of Canberra, the paranoia about the Communist Party, the short-lived support for nuclear energy as a panacea and the recognition of the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear waste. In the middle of all this there are tedious passages on Edith's love life and her infatuations.
April 17, 2013
Final in Edith Trilogy, set in Canberra from 1950s to 1970s. Edith returns to Australia hoping for a job with External Affairs, but is reduced to a temporary position in National Capital Development Commission. Entertaining discussion on the concept of a ‘planned city’ and political events of the period- banning of Communist Party, rise of atomic power and the notion of a ‘lavender marriage’.
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