Winter (Marsden novel)

2000 novel by John Marsden

Winter

First edition

Author| John Marsden
Language| English
Genre| Young adult fiction
Published| 2000 (Pan Macmillan)
Publication place| Australia
Media type| Print
ISBN| 0-7329-1014-5 (Australia)
ISBN 0-330-36270-4 (UK)

Winter is a young adult novel by John Marsden published by Pan Macmillan in 2000.[1] The novel follows 16-year-old Winter, who returns to her family's estate after a long absence and uncovers secrets about the deaths of her parents.

Winter was generally well received, but earned less critical acclaim than some of Marsden's other works, including the Tomorrow series, Letters from the Inside and So Much to Tell You.

Winter was inspired by Marsden's own experience of moving into a rundown house in the country. The descriptions of Winter's house and her efforts to restore it are a real-life description of Marsden's own house, and his own efforts to restore it.

## Plot summary

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After her parents died in a yacht race when she was four, Winter began living with her mother's half sister and her husband, the Robinsons. Now 16, Winter returns to her parents’ home, drawn by a desire to know more about her parents and the home where she spent her early childhood.

Upon arriving at the home, Winter is welcomed by the caretakers of the property, Ralph and Sylvia, who invite Winter to stay in their home, but Winter insists on staying in her parents’ house. She finds the home run-down and negotiates with Mr. Carruthers, the manager of the estate and of the trust left to her by her parents, to renovate it. Later, Winter discovers that Ralph and Sylvia have been embezzling money from the family trust and insists that Mr. Carruthers fire Ralph and Sylvia.

Meanwhile, Winter befriends several townspeople, including Matthew Kennedy, a young man from a neighboring farm. She also meets Bruce McGill, an architect who knew her parents well. During her first meeting with Bruce, Winter learns that she has a great-aunt. Bruce organises the renovation of her house and introduces her to his daughter, Jesse, with whom she becomes friends. Jesse encourages Winter to pursue her passion for music by applying for a college singing course.

One day, Sylvia tells Winter that her parents are buried on the property. Winter is surprised that she had never been informed of or taken to visit her parents’ graves. At the gravesite, Winter discovers that her parents died 6 months apart, not at the same time as she had been told. Winter questions Mr. Carruthers, who tells her that while her father did indeed die in the yacht race, her mother died in a shooting accident. However, Winter is puzzled by this, as her mother was a skilled shooter.

While visiting her great-aunt, who was reluctant to see her, Winter asks her aunt about her mother's death. During their conversation, Winter remembers that as a child, she had picked up one of her mother's spare guns and shot it playfully, accidentally killing her mother. Her great-aunt had shielded her from this by making it look like an accident.

At the end of the novel, Winter comes to peace with her role in her mother's death and falls in love with her neighbor Matthew Kennedy. She lives in her renoveated family home with Jesse.

## Characters

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* Winter De Salis \- The protagonist of the story, strong-willed Winter was orphaned when she was four and returns to her parents' home to learn about her past.
* Phillip De Salis \- Winter's father, who was killed in the Sydney-Hobart yacht race.
* Phyllis De Salis \- Winter's mother, who was supposedly killed in a shooting accident, but, as Winter eventually discovers, was killed by four-year-old Winter in a tragic accident involving a loaded gun.
* Rita Harrison \- Winter's wealthy great-aunt. She was with Winter the day of the shooting accident where Winter killed her mother. She portrayed the event as an accident to protect Winter.
* Mrs. Stone \- Rita Harrison's housekeeper. She was also present on the day of the shooting accident and helped Mrs. Harrison to portray the event as an accident to protect Winter.
* Ralph and Sylvia \- Hired to take care of the Warriewood estate They use their position as caretakers for their own profit.
* Matthew Kennedy \- A neighbour of Winter's who loves horses and is a very skilled horse rider. Winter eventually falls in love with him.
* Mr. Carruthers \- As the supervisor of the Warriewood estate, Mr. Carruthers manages the property and money left to Winter by her parents.
* Dr. Couples \- The doctor who saw Phyllis's crime scene.
* Jess McGill \- Jess is Winter's friend. They meet through Jess’ father Bruce who helps in the renovation of the Warriewood estate. They bond over their love of music, and move into Warriewood as housemates at the end of the novel.

## Reception

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Winter is sometimes compared to another of Marsden's books, Letters from the Inside[2][3] because the main characters in both books are strong-willed teenage girls.[3] Many reviews agree that Winter appears stubborn and unreasonable at the start of the book, but that she becomes more likeable as the story progresses.[4][5] Despite agreeing that the finale is satisfying and gripping, most of these reviews state that it is less surprising than the conclusion in Letters from the Inside.[4][3]

Alice Pung has praised Marsden's works, including Winter, stating that his success among young adults is due to the fact that he puts the experiences and perspectives of children at the centre of his writing.[6]

Some critics have suggested that Marsden is too negative in his writing. Michaels criticises him for portraying the world as fundamentally malevolent.[7] Scutter agrees, suggesting that the children portrayed in his writings are extremely troubled.[8] She thinks that Marsden represents adolescence as a period of life that is completely beset with “pain, loneliness, difficulty in communication [and] lack of love”.[8] Moreover, Michaels suggests that in Marsden's work the adolescent characters’ pain and suffering is often caused directly or indirectly by the adult characters.[7] The adolescent characters are left to sort out their problems and find their identity alone, without any adult assistance or support.[7] Scutter suggests that rather than creating a realistic story, as Marsden and those who enjoy his novels suggest, this is just as unrealistic as other works of fiction, such as those of Enid Blyton[8].

Pung defends Marsden against this criticism of writing novels with overly painful storylines. She notes that she grew up with people who had lived through war, and with others who came to Australia as unaccompanied minors.[9] For them, the weak or absent adult characters in Marsden's novels are simply an accurate reflection of their life.[9] Pung notes that as a society, we have no objections to the works of William Shakespeare, despite the fact that his plays portray suicide, violence, anti-Semitism and madness. She suggests that the reason for this is that Shakespeare's works are far removed from our daily life, which means that we can explain any moral atrocities as a product of the culture or the era.[9] However, Marsden's books are set in modern-day Australia, in a context that most of his readers understand, and live in.[9] Pung suggests that his works are criticised for this reason; because western society, particularly Australian society, does not want to accept and acknowledge that there are teenagers in our midst who suffer terribly.[9] Some of their parents are drug addicts, others are dead, and others suffer from domestic violence.[9] Society is afraid of corrupting young adults if they read novels in which these horrific events happen in a context that is so close to their own.[9] Pung suggests that we should not fear this, that young adults will not be corrupted by these books unless there was already corruption within them.[9] Furthermore, she suggests that novels about these events help young people who undergo them to understand that their life and experience matters, that they are not alone.[9]

## Inspiration

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Marsden describes the inspiration behind Winter in his book Marsden on Marsden: The Story of John Marsden's Bestselling Books. For Winter, he describes two sources of inspiration. The first source of inspiration was an estate that he bought in January 1998, the Tye Estate.[10] When Marsden bought this estate, it was old and in need of renovation.[10] In Winter, Winter's estate is a description of this very house.[10] Many of the activities that Winter performs throughout the novel are activities that Marsden himself carried out in the renovation of the Tye Estate, including pulling up blackberry plants and cleaning the gutters.[10] Some aspects of the storyline are drawn directly from Marsden's own experience. For example, when Marsden acquired the Tye Estate, people told him of the old, beautiful furniture that it used to contain. In Winter, the old, beautiful furniture from Winter's estate has also gone missing.[10] The second source of inspiration for this novel was a short story that Marsden wrote, but never published, about a girl who was trying to uncover the truth about how her mother had died.[10]

Like Marsden's other works So much to Tell You and Letters from the Inside, Winter is in some ways a detective novel.[10] Marsden's love for this genre comes from his passion for Agatha Christie novels.[10] This passion of his was especially strong during his teenage years.[10]

Marsden also discusses his inspiration for the name of the protagonist: "Winter." He has a natural affinity for poetic names, such as River or Willow (or Winter).[10] The name "Winter" came from a woman who came to one of the writing courses that he taught.[10] He started writing Winter just a few months after meeting this woman at his writing course.[10]

## References

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1. ^ "Winter by John Marsden". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 14 October 2024.
2. ^ "Winter". Kirkus. 1 August 2002.
3. ^ a b c "Winter. Review of Winter by John Marsden". Publishers Weekly. 5 May 2002.
4. ^ a b Doyle (2002). "Marsden, John. Winter". School Library Journal. 48: 160.
5. ^ Rosser (2002). "Marsden, John. Winter". Kliatt. 36: 12.
6. ^ Pung, Alice (2017). On John Marsden: Writers on Writers. Black Inc. in association with Melbourne University Press and the State Library of Victoria.
7. ^ a b c Michaels, Wendy (2004). "The Realistic Turn: Trends in Recent Australian Young Adult Fiction". Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature. 14: 49–59\. doi:10.21153/pecl2004vol14no1art1277. S2CID 151548431.
8. ^ a b c Scutter (1999). Displaced Fictions: Contemporary Australian Fiction for Teenagers and Young Adults. Melbourne University Press.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Pung, Alice (2018). "Don't say teenagers aren't ready for dark fiction". Literacy Learning: The Middle Years. 26: 11–12.
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Marsden, John (2000). Marsden on Marsden: The Story Behind John Marsden's Bestselling Books. Sydney: Pan Macmillan. pp. 118–122\. ISBN 9780330362160.

* v
* t
* e

Works by John Marsden

Novels|

| Tomorrow series|

* Tomorrow, When the War Began (1993)
* The Dead of Night (1994)

|

Miscellaneous|

* So Much to Tell You (1987)
* Letters from the Inside (1991)
* Checkers (1996)
* Winter (2000)

Adaptations|

* Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010 film)
* Tomorrow When the War Began (2016 TV series)

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