NELL

THE AUSTRALIAN HEIRESS WHO SAVED KERENSKY FROM STALIN & THE NAZIS

by Susanna de Vries ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2020

A biography focuses on a wealthy Australian heiress who defied the conventions of a male-dominated world.

Nell Tritton was born in 1899 into blessed circumstances—her father, Fred, was the wealthiest businessman in Australia’s Queensland—but her life was not without its travails. Two of her siblings died in 1919, victims of the flu epidemic. Undaunted nonetheless, Tritton was devoted to staking out an independent life of her own, one that freed her from the prohibitive restrictions of a more patriarchal age. She was the first woman to win prizes in Queensland for rally-driving as well as Brisbane’s first female journalist. She dreamed of moving to Paris to learn the language and become a writer, but those aspirations were stymied by the devastation of World War 1. Nevertheless, she finally arrived there in 1925, enthused to be living in a famously literary city during its halcyon days: “Nell was thrilled to think she had chosen a corner of Paris dedicated to the literati.” Tritton lived a remarkably eventful life during extraordinary times. She married Alexander Kerensky, the former Russian prime minister and an outspoken critic of Lenin and Stalin, an uncompromising position that endangered his life: “Kerensky had tried to introduce democratic reforms but had fled to Europe in fear of his life after the Russian Revolution. Lenin and his ruthless assistant Stalin had put a price on Kerensky’s head.”

De Vries’ research is magisterially scrupulous—in fact, this virtue can become a vice when she buries readers under mounds of minute details. Still, this is a comprehensive account of Tritton’s life—especially impressive since the volume is fairly short—that examines her indomitable spirit and the many ways in which she resisted societal expectations for women. Tritton’s life was as admirable as it was dramatic and cinematic, and as a result, she makes an excellent subject for a biography. De Vries vividly captures the woman’s remarkable drive and talent as well as her moral decency. When the publisher Ford Maddox Ford requested sexual favors in return for a contract, Tritton was horrified and turned him down. The author’s writing is workmanlike—always perfectly lucid but unembellished for the most part by literary style. This linguistic flatness can feel especially odd in descriptions of Tritton since she was a woman of lofty poetical ambitions. But de Vries can surprise readers—consider this moving passage that depicts the carnage German bombers left behind in France: “On the highway were dead horses and shattered limbs of bodies blown apart by bombs. The road stank of death as the sun rose and beat down on them. Many cars had been reduced to twisted wrecks and had to be pushed out of the way before the procession could start again. Nell drove past women howling beside the bodies of dead husbands and children. Dogs whose owners had been killed wandered disconsolately through the traffic.” The book is also filled with beautiful historical photographs—mostly black-and-white—that provide helpful illustrations of Tritton’s life.

A wonderfully researched, thorough account of a forgotten but memorable life.

Pub Date: May 18, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-98-062166-2

Page Count: 242

Publisher: Pirgos Press

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2021

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL NONFICTION