The Jam Maker
by Mary-Lou Stephens
HarperCollins
The Australian called Mary-Lou Stephens’ debut novel, The Last of the Apple Blossom (2021), “an outstanding historical novel about women and the secrets and burdens they carry.”
Her next novel, The Chocolate Factory (2024), was a deliciously rich tale of the early years of Cadbury’s Tasmanian chocolate factory; the role women played in its success and the tactics used to find out the secret milk chocolate recipe.
Stephens’ latest historical novel delves into the many jam-making enterprises in the newly established town of Hobart. In 1874, making jam was a way to earn some money for many enterprising people, and there are also a large factory using the state’s abundant fruit supply to make jams on a commercial scale.
Twelve year-old Harriet Brown gets a job in the jam factory, but in order to do so, she must become Harry, cut off all her hair and wear her brother’s patched hand-me-downs because George Peacock only employed boys in his factory.
Working for 10 hours a day, six days a week would earn Harriet 4 shillings to keep her family from starving, but after 4 years of pasting labels on jam tins, it was becoming more difficult and Harriet left the factory.
While her friend at the factory Henry Jones was promoted, Harriet found out that living as a female didn’t give her many choices as to how she was going to survive. While Henry was to establish IXL jams which are still being made today, Harriet had to take a very different, and often desperate, path.
The Jam Maker follows the lives of Harriet and Henry as Australia heads towards the 1901 declaration of Federation. Their friendship continues as Australia becomes involved in the Boer War; endures heat waves, floods and a typhoid epidemic and then becomes involved in The Great War.
Permeated with the flavours of raspberries, cherries, black currants, plums and apples, the story of Harriet and Henry celebrates found families as well as the hard working determination of our pioneers.
Lezly Herbert
