And this is not the sanitised story of Sunday schools and synagogues.
We meet David as a despised and neglected child, and follow him through glory and trauma to enfeebled age. She revisited David’s story in the Bible and found three things: first, that the biblical account of David is fragmented, in Brooks’ words ‘you have to rummage around through several books to piece it together.’ Second, David was not the man she remembered: She has a particular talent for retelling historical narratives through minor players, and in doing so offering new perspectives on well-worn tales.īrooks was inspired to explore David’s story when her nine-year-old football-loving son announced that he wanted to learn David’s instrument, the harp. Her debut novel Year of Wonders (2001), set during the bubonic plague, has already become something of a classic, while her second novel, March (2005), was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It’s an ambitious premise, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Brooks. 2015) takes readers back three thousand years to ask: who was David? And, in seeking an answer, gives voice to those history has traditionally overlooked. Geraldine Brooks’ The Secret Chord (Hachette Australia, Oct. Everyone knows David the myth, but little is known of David the man.
That was my task: to uncover those earliest roots.Įven if you’re not religious, you’re likely familiar with the story of King David, the shepherd boy with a talent for music who slayed a giant, gathered an army and became King of Israel. They pull life from whatever surfaces they cling to, while the roots, maybe, wither and rot until you cannot find the place from which the seed of the vine has truly sprung. …The stories that grow up around a king are strong vines with a fierce grip.
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