This year I was fortunate enough to re-read some of Ruth Park’s novels. When I was growing up, she was one of my favourite authors. My mum started me out early with The Muddle-Headed Wombat, from which I graduated to Park’s novels about the Sydney slums.
I’m currently writing a book set in the 1870s, about two Chinese siblings who sojourn in North Queensland to dig for gold. As part of my research, I’m reading historical and fictional works about the gold rush, of which Park’s novel, The Frost and the Fire (also published as One-a-Pecker, Two-a-Pecker), is one. The Frost and the Fire brings to life the New Zealand gold rush of the 1860s. Like her other works, this is a tale of adventure and hardship, but mostly, it’s a story of beautifully drawn characters — orphaned Currency, Mother Jerusalem, Shannadore, Little Pig and Tatty. Reading The Frost and the Fire made me immediately want to return to her other novels. I wanted to revisit the Darcys.
What always attracts me to Park’s books is her flair for storytelling. The drama! The pathos! The cacophony of life that surrounds the Darcy family in The Harp in the South and Poor Man’s Orange. These novels, set in mid-20th century Surry Hills, brim with all the topics sure to rivet an impressionable teenager: adultery, abortion, violence against women and children, sex work, kidnapping, alcoholism. The reader can’t help but be invested in the ebb and flow of the lives of Ma, Hugh, Rowena and, of course, Dolour (not to mention the myriad side characters that enrich their lives). How excited my mum and I were when Missus, the prequel, followed!
Part of Park’s genius is that, in my mind, I know these people. After reading Pink Flannel, in particular, I felt like Jenny’s aunts were part of my own heritage — dusty, sepia-tinted memories passed down in the family. Park’s novels give colour to the mundane, and the characters are portrayed with humour and sympathy, like when Hugh is being a jackass, or when we are shown Rowena’s prejudices. Park unlocks human complexity and that, for me, is where Park’s strength lies — in the way she handles issues that are not clear cut, not simply good or bad. She explores human frailties and how strength of character competes with unfortunate circumstances.
One shocking scene, which has stayed with me over the years, depicts the sexual abuse of an intellectually disabled girl. I remember wondering if I was reading what I thought I was reading. Park’s handling of the scene is subtle, so matter of fact. Even on re-reading it, to double-check if my memory was accurate, I went over the passage a couple of times. Yes, I did remember the scene just as it is. Shocking. Sad. Complex.
Now, as an older reader — and as a writer — what I notice is Park’s use of rich prose. Sentences that can be chewed upon, like sticky caramel, so sweet and salty. Also, I have come to notice what is, dare I say it, a fond, ‘good-natured’ Aussie racism towards the Chinese shopkeepers, Mr Monkey and Lick Jimmy. I can see that, to some, these portrayals of Mr Monkey and Lick Jimmy are troublesome in a contemporary sense but, for me, a young Eurasian reader in the 1980s, I was interested to see Asian people actually being depicted in an Australian novel.
When my daughter was 12, we spent a chilly month at my mum’s house in Queanbeyan, and it was there, curled up under two blankets and a quilt that she first read of the Darcys. Last year, two friends — both writers, both Australian, both avid readers — told me they’d never read any books by Ruth Park. At Christmas drinks, we exchanged gifts; I gave them each a copy of The Harp in the South.
About the Writer
Mirandi Riwoe is is a Brisbane-based writer. Her novella The Fish Girl won Seizure’s Viva la Novella competition and was shortlisted for The Stella Prize. Her debut novel is She be Damned.
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