Songs from the Violet Café

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1943. Violet Trench crosses Lake Rotorua with a small boy, but rows back without him. Sixty years later, a boat is ritually set alight on the same body of water. The intervening years see Violet open a café by the lake – the scene of an event in the summer of 1963 with lasting repercussions for Violet and her young employees. Their lives diverge, but Violet’s influence on them all – and on runaway Jessie Sandle in particular – will linger like the scent of the truffles with which she infuses her dishes. The experience of working for Violet Trench in her small-town cafe in the summer of 1963 shapes the lives of a group of women including Jessie Sandal, who follows Violet's influence as far as Cambodia. Fiona Kidman explores family relationships and the difficult journey to female independence.