Those Who Come After is abook that straddles the crumbling,aristocratic world ofpost-war Europe and the hot,dry landscape of Australia,today and in the 1960s.Juliana Stolburg was 12when her family of threestepped off a boat that travelled from Europeto Melbourne in 1959. With her father, theson of a Lord of Zeeland (a province of theNetherlands) and her mother, a Jewish peasantand political prisoner of the death campDachau, she moves to the bottom of theearth to restore the fortune that was lost tothe Stolburgs as a result of the war. But thefamily has lost much more than heirloomsand gold.

This atypical migrant tale weaves betweenJuliana’s life at 60, as a just-retired diplomat,and her life as a sickly child, first in Zeeland,playing in the collapsing castles of her ancestors,and then as a strong-willed adolescentin the new world of Melbourne. Married,but childless, Juliana realises she is the last ofthe illustrious Stolburgs when her aunt, LadyKatrien, a lady-in-waiting to the royal familyin the Netherlands, dies. Elisabeth Holdsworthwas born in Zeeland and arrived inAustralia in the same year as her protagonist.In 2007 she won the Calibre Prize for an essaywith the same title as this, her first novel.

Those Who Come After explores the legacy ofthe war that ravaged Europe and the peoplewho survived. It is the story of resilience,emotional fall-out and an era that slowlycollapsed. Although parts of this book feelclunky, this wide-ranging story encompassesa life that has borne unimaginable trials.But Holdsworth writes without emotionalfanfare, allowing the reader to be sweptacross oceans to the icy climes of Zeeland,and back again, to the sound of cicadas inthe Australian air.

Virginia Millen is an editor at Hardie GrantMagazines and a freelance reviewer