We are heading to Australia in less than a week and so when this title came up as being set in Australia I thought: why not? I had seen this book on the shelves for years, it was a mini-series with Richard Chamberlain, so why not find out for myself if it was any good?
It was OK.
On the side of the good – the setting and descriptions of the home ranch in Australia were really well written. The author took the time to really flesh out the place and the excitement of the family as they went from poverty to the edge of riches. Somehow the book delivers on the sense of scale – the vast lamb ranch and what it takes to manage it.
Also I like stories that cover entire generations – and here we meet them as a young family and then follow them mostly to the end of their lives. They live through world events (including World War II), although some of these are skimmed over a bit.
On the other side of the ledger the writer’s style is a little dated, and everything is told (rather than shown), sometimes becoming pretty dry and simplistic. The dialog often devolves into cheesy lines that imagine would be agony to watch actors chew through.
There are a lot of ridiculous situations that felt totally unbelievable, simply built quickly to serve the plot, and these quickly dispelled any sense of belief for the reader. Towards the second half of the book I felt like the whole story was overly mother-centric – from the long descriptions of what people were wearing to the frustration at children abandoning the wisdom of their mothers.
It was a long read, and towards the end it felt like work getting through it. But it’ll be hard not to think about it while visiting Sydney next week.
Next I am reading Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon.
