An Attractive Naivety: Australia as a new nation in a complex world

A sweeping historical novel of war, identity, and a steadfast resilience at the heart of a nation.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Australia is a new nation—ambitious, proud, and uncertain of itself. An Attractive Naivety traces its coming of age through the lives of ordinary people living through extraordinary times. From plague-stricken Sydney to the battlefield of Palestine, from the Cowra Breakout to the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, this rich, character-driven novel brings to life the defining events that shaped the soul of a country.

Interweaving fictional characters with real people and documented events, David Gormley-O’Brien explores the hidden corners of Australia’s past—ratcatchers and tram drivers, nurses and labourers, unionists and returned soldiers. These are the stories of those rarely found in textbooks, yet essential to the making of a nation. Their struggles are deeply human: a young widow raising a child after the plague; a mixed family torn by class, shame, and love; a boy who knits socks for soldiers while his brother dodges the front; a nurse inspired by Florence Nightingale; a worker who watches the steel bones of a bridge rise above the harbour—and wonders what future it might bring.

With vivid historical settings and immersive period detail, the novel explores the contradictions of nation-building: idealism and inequality, sacrifice and prejudice, pride and grief. Language and attitudes are presented true to their time—unflinchingly but compassionately—revealing the evolving conscience of a young society.

It is a story about memory and identity, belonging and displacement, and the quiet heroism of ordinary and people living in history’s shadow.

For lovers of historical fiction grounded in rigorous research, this is a moving, insightful portrait of Australia in the making—and the lives that gave it shape.