Artem Samsurov, an ardent follower of Lenin and a hero of the rebellion, flees his Siberian labor camp for the sanctuary of Brisbane, Australia in 1911. Failing to find the worker's paradise and brotherhood he imagined, Artem quickly joins the agitation for a general strike among the growing trade union movement. He finds a fellow spirit in a dangerously attractive female lawyer and becomes entangled in the death of another Tsarist exile. But, Atrem can't overcome the corruption, repression, and injustice of the conservative Brisbane. When he returns to Russia in 1917 for the Red October, will his beliefs stand? Based on the true story of Artem Sergeiv, a Russian immigrant in Australia who would play a vital role in the Russian Revolution, The People's Train explores the hearts of the men and women who fueled, compromised, and passionately fought for their ideals.
"Thomas Keneally is one of the historical novel's most expert practitioners, and his new book sees him back on the form that produced Schindler's Ark, which won the Booker Prize in 1982. . . . This change of narrator is another inspired stroke of Keneally's, as it enacts structurally the relation between the individual and society, which couldn't have happened if he had stuck with the 'monorail' o
Giles Foden, The Guardian
"Brilliantly done."
John Clare, The Sun-Herald
"Schindler's Ark won the Booker Prize for Keneally in 1982; The People's Train is every bit as well-wrought and moving as that classic."
