A Man of Honour

One fine March day in 1868, gunshots rang out at a society charity event in Sydney's harbourside suburb of Clontarf. In the aftermath, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh - son of Queen Victoria - lay close to death, while the assembled crowd seized and beat his attacker, Irish-born Henry James O'Farrell. Who was this character who began the day a complete unknown and ended it as the young colony's most hated man?

A Man of Honour is a richly textured, lyrical reimagining of O'Farrell's life, before and after the would-be assassination. Simon Smith paints a portrait of a very modern anti-hero: a man whose love for his family, his God, his birth country and his Fenian brotherhood is strong, but whose life is ultimately skewed by illness and by the cruelty of some of those closest to him. Drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts and on O'Farrell's actual words as revealed in gaol-cell interviews, court transcripts and his own writings, Smith asks: What makes a charming, sensitive and erudite man want to arm himself and shoot the son of the world's most powerful ruler? Is he a terrorist, a patriot, a hero?

Deborah Crabtree: When debut novelist Simon Smith was a child he was told, Someone in our family shot a prince. That man was Henry James OFarrell, whose failed attempt in 1868 to assassinate Queen Victorias son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh in Sydney led to OFarrell being tried and hung in record time. OFarrell was a patriot, a gentleman, a religious man, an unwell man and, it would appear, quite the dandy. He was also a very charming self-declared 'man of honour'. What would motivate such a man to attempt the assassination of such an eminent person? This question captured Smiths imagination so much that he wrote A Man of Honour, a delightful fictional exploration of his relatives mind and motivations. Real documents, letters, prison-cell interviews and court transcripts add authenticity to this novel, while the strength of the writing can be found in Smiths sensitivity to his subject, his lyrical prose and imaginative narrative voice. The present tense adds immediacy and verve to this fictional rendering of near-forgotten history, and there is a sense that this story is one only Smith could tell. Man of Honour will sit comfortably on the shelf next to Kate Grenvilles Secret River and Peter Careys True History of the Kelly Gang, and will find a home with readers who love textured, lyrical novels such as Hannah Kents Burial Rights. Deborah Crabtree is a Melbourne-based writer and bookseller. Books+Publishing is Australia's number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Simon Smith is a respected cinematographer who has spent the last four decades shooting documentaries for Australian TV and film. He has been privileged to hear and record the stories of First Nations communities, survivors of the atom bomb and the genocide of Cambodia, soldiers and artists and thinkers of all kinds the world over. With his camera, he has travelled all over Australia, China, Japan, Indonesia, PNG and Vanuatu, North America and Europe.

'Someone in our family shot a prince' was a story told to Simon by his mother when he was a young boy. It thrilled him then, and thrilled him again when he stumbled on it, in magical ways, almost a decade ago. He knew he had to find out more, and tell the world.

Simon plunged into researching the facts behind the family story. Then he began to write. The result is his first novel: A Man of Honour. Simon lives with his partner Ron, and their beloved cat Danny Boy, on Gadigal Land at Darlinghurst - only 100 metres from where his relative, Henry James O'Farrell, was incarcerated, tried and executed.

'I deserve to hang. I did this deed. No doubt about that. I had my reasons, though, and not the ones people believe.' One fine March day in 1868, gunshots rang out at a society charity event in Sydney's harbourside suburb of Clontarf. In the aftermath, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh - son of Queen Victoria - lay close to death, while the assembled crowd seized and beat his attacker, Irish-born Henry James O'Farrell. Who was this character who began the day a complete unknown and ended it as the young colony's most hated man? A Man of Honour is a richly textured, lyrical reimagining of O'Farrell's life, before and after the would-be assassination. Simon Smith paints a portrait of a very modern anti-hero: a man whose love for his family, his God, his birth country and his Fenian brotherhood is strong, but whose life is ultimately skewed by illness and by the cruelty of some of those closest to him. Drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts and on O'Farrell's actual words as revealed in gaol-cell interviews, court transcripts and his own writings, Smith asks: What makes a charming, sensitive and erudite man want to arm himself and shoot the son of the world's most powerful ruler? Is he a terrorist, a patriot, a hero?

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