| Title | : | The Potato Factory (The Potato Factory, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0749322632 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780749322632 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 739 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1995 |
The Potato Factory (The Potato Factory, #1) Reviews
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Holy hell! This is one damn good book. Bryce Courtenay still amazes me in his level of research comparable to only authors such as Diana Gabaldon and Jack Whyte. It deals with the populating of the British colonies in Australia, Tasmaina, and New Zealand. While the accuracy of detail is impeccable, his skill as a storyteller is what keeps me hooked on ordering his books from Australia. Good God, I hope this man lives forever and keeps writing! Thank goodness that it is one book in a series of 3. I was devastated by the end of Peekay's story in South Africa but being shipped from England's slums to Tasmania for the past few months has been a journey never to forget. Definately a keeper on my favorites shelves!!!
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Perhaps my favorite work of historical fiction. Courtenay spins a intriguing tale of crime and deceit in early 19th century England and the Hobart Town penal colony. Ikey Solomon (likely the character that Fagen of Oliver was based on) is easy to both love and hate. We find ourselves sympathizing with Solomon, and despising him at the same time.
A must-read for historical fiction fans. You will find yourself wanting to read the two other books in the series. -
I "read" this as a download from Audible.com. Humphrey Bower is an exceptional narrator effortlessly giving each character their own distinct voice. I was enthralled with Courtenay's writing and Bower's narration. I don't know if I'd give it five stars as a print book or not, but I recommend it as an audible book to anyone.
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3.5 stars
South African born (and later banished), this author has many well-known titles under his belt, yet this is my first book by him.
The beginning of the book reminded me a bit of
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper in so much as the descriptions of London were so vivid, the poverty and struggles so real.
I was not really a fan of Ikey’s character, even if he was based on a true historical figure. I did like his criminal activities in London but once he got shipped to Van Diemens Land my interest wavered a bit. Had it not been for the interesting side characters like Sperm Whale Sally and Billygonequeer I probably would have enjoyed those sections less.
I loved the character of Mary Abacus and she is the reason I rounded my rating up to 4 stars. Time and again she showed determination and perseverance in the face of so much cruelty and curveballs that came her way.
And talking about cruelty – it felt as if the author took pleasure in torturing his characters, coming up with more and more inventive ways for the story to break them.
This is a vivid historical adventure showing life in 19th century London and the Tasmanian Penal colony.
Well worth the read. -
I'm a bit undecided with The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtenay.
Yes, there's no doubt that Bryce Courtenay is a great writer. He has the ability to make you believe that you are experiencing the same things with the characters whether its in the streets of 19th century London or the colonial outpost that was Van Damien Island and even projecting sympathy towards the lowest scums of English society. Also, the way he sets up the background of the story is nothing short of perfect, you know each detail has been meticulously researched it was almost like I was reading a very interesting history book about how people lived in that time.
I was there, I bought the story however after the first quarter of the novel I started to have an ominous feeling that I wasn't going to love this book. Boredom came first; Courtenay tended to repeat and rattle on about unnecessary facts explaining every minute detail. Although at times it is interesting, it does get annoying after a while hence the next dilemma. I started to get annoyed that the story was never going to finish because it kept diverting into these other random facts and story lines. There was a point that I really felt that I was reading a completely different book! I understand that there was a next chapter to the story however I believe that Courtenay should have just finished telling the story between Ikey, Mary and Hannah before he dives into the next book. Furthermore, the ending seemed abrupt and rushed like he realised he run out of time or any more paper.
Although the next book does seem interesting, the book was a disappointment especially since it had so much potential in the beginning. -
** donated to CCU 30/10/2014
review finally!.
Ikey Solomon and his partner in crime, Mary Abacus, make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth-century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land.
In the backstreets and dives of Hobart Town, Mary builds The Potato Factory - a brewery, where she plans a new future. But her ambitions are threatened by Ikey's wife, Hannah, her old enemy. As each woman sets out to destroy the other, the families are brought to the edge of disaster.
The characters Ikey, Mary and Hannah (Ikey's wife) were documented real people & some of the other characters in Tasmania are based on real historical people. Although Ikey's character is partially based on Fagin ( from Dicken's Oliver Twist) it's interesting just how much Courtenay has borrowed of Dicken's Twist to flesh out Ikey's London years particularly with his apprentice thieves. This is the first Courtneay book I've read. It's faced paced generally and keeps you hooked though a few chapters here and there dragged -although interesting & possibly historically close to actual reality of the early whalers, the point was long in coming eg. the chapter about Blue Whale Sally.
Here and there I was annoyed at some of Courtenay's descriptions of our particular Australian things such as daub and wattle huts. They felt like they were lifted out of the wikipedia, awkward and jarring compared to the dialogue. This may be because Courtneay is not Australian, Or ? felt the international reader needed that type of stilted information. Normally when I come across a term or phrase I am not familiar with in a book I look it up myself...I don't need the author to give an encyclopedic explanation midstream -that only works if two characters are speaking or there is a constant omnipresent narrator which I don't feel is present here. ( a glossary at the end - is more acceptable).
My other complaint is while Ikey is mostly billed as the main character, when he dies 3/4 way through, it's announced in a letter and the reader is wondering how and while there are two books in this series following this one, it seems odd he is so suddenly out of the picture. The real heroine of the book is Mary in my opinion, and it is she who achieves some greatness & transformation in the course of the story. I felt for her from the beginning, while Ikey was a little harder to understand, though I came to love him too with his penchant for liking many pockets in his coats.
Those who have no knowledge of convict times in Australia will find the conditions & punishments harsh. While I've read accounts before of conditions on the transport ships and of the lashings, beatings and meagre food rations and the inhumanity of The Female Factory orphans, it still shocks me. Makes you wonder sometimes how our Aussie psyche evolved into a "she'll be right mate" attitude.
There are several good quotes in the book, two I listed below - if I have time will find the others.
(wireless router problems...review later
Score! 50c today op shop find.
There was an Australian mini series made of this book with Lisa McClune which I missed probably for the better since many down under mini series end up seeming the same, particular period ones.
"When the poor embrace the tenants of morality it comes ready-made with misery as it's constant companion".
..."it is not the nature of things to remain calm. Contentment is always a summer to be counted in brief snatches of sunlight while unhappiness is an endless winter season of dark and stormy weather".
loaned to pop -
‘The Potato Factory’ by Bryce Courtnay.
This excellent novel sat on my bookshelf for some months before I finally got around to reading it. I am not sure why, perhaps it was the title that did not strike the right cords. I even picked it up a couple of times, but dismissed it. What an oversight that was.
'The Potato Factory' is a journey back in time to Dickensian London and all the filth and squalor that inspired Charles Dickens to pen his many novels, and in particular ‘Oliver Twist’.
Although written as a work of fiction, the author chose this route to publication only as a method of filling out the bare facts as recorded in historical periodicals of the time, both here and in Van Demons Land. As a work of fiction he was also afforded the luxury of adding some excellent dialogue.
The central character in this true tale is Ikey Solomon whom most readers will recognise as ‘Fagan’ from ‘Oliver Twist.’ This was no coincidence, as he was the inspiration behind this well-known classic, as were many other colourful characters, such as Sparrow Fart ( The Artful Dodger,) and Bob Marley (Bill Sykes.) Other Characters include ‘Sperm Whale Sally’ and ‘Billygonequeer’. Charles Dickens himself is reputed to have interview Sparrow Fart in his capacity as a young reporter after the well-documented escape from Newgate prison and trial of Ikey Solomon at the old bailey.
With such a cast this is a hard book to put down. In a society where petty criminals could be hanged or transported for merely picking a pocket, or prostitution, the reader will cringe at the cruelty and hypocrisy of the so called law and aristocracy.
The second half of this book is set in Van Demons Land (Now Tasmania,) but to find out how our immigrants fare you are just going to have to read it for yourself.
Fascinating in its detail of real characters and actual events, and consuming in its prose. ‘The Potato Factory.’ -
Bryce Courtenay - always delivers when it comes to outstandingly fantastic Australian Books.
The Potato Factory is definitely up there as one of his absolute best.
The story is about Mary, based in the early 18th century, she is living in London and has been raised by her father, who taught her how to use an abacus, with all intentions of one day being able to obtain a job as the best clerk. This hindered Mary's life as a Clerk's Job was a Male's job, not a female's job, and this because Mary's pitfall from the time she set out. She had been cruelly punished for being such a talented and smart lady.
However, Mary never gave up, she did whatever she could to make ends meet, and life was cruel to her, in many ways we can only try to imagine.
Mary meets Ikey, who makes a living as a pick pocket, and he is the one gives her the start in life that she has always hoped for, he gives her a job as a Clerk and they create numerous business adventures together.
Mary's story is amazingly heroic, it explores her journey from London to being transported to Australia, Van Diemens Land as a convict.
This book is the first of a trilogy.
I absolutely love love loved this book, Bryce Courtenay was an incredibly amazingly talented Author, this is a MUST read for every Australian.
Please visit my blog and follow to see all of my past and future book reviews.
https://www.facebook.com/Kylies-Book-... -
This is Historical Fiction and I've had this in my audio library for quite some time. I'll first say that the narration was wonderfully done. When that happens, it adds to the enjoyment.
I liked this. I liked that it fully covered the same characters for decades. I felt like I really got to know them. Even when they weren't particularly likable, I felt I understood them and their actions. I liked the way the the author took opportunities to torture his characters. They really were so tortured, but yet he'd balance it out with hope or triumph. That ebbed and flowed seamlessly throughout the story.
This was a solid 4 stars for me. At times it was heavy on the narrative, which isn't a plus in my book, but it worked here. I noticed it; it just wasn't irksome. I also wanted more info because I had questions that went unanswered. (Especially with the relationship details between Mary and Ikey. Some of that was too vague.) Overall, I still enjoyed this, so 4 stars. -
First - I loved this book. After starting it on vacation (it was the only book at the rental home on the beach where we were) I had to find the others in this series.
The storyline was so fascinating to me as a look into the lives of the poor and downtrodden - prisoners sent from Britain to Australia. Because of the people involved the language is very course and I wouldn't recommend it to people who are offended by such. I don't believe it is filthy for the sake of filth, but if this were a movie it would be R for sure. For me it was almost like reading in another language, a vernacular of our own, but even though I can't stand to watch movies with lots of swearing, this book didn't bother me. Not sure why, but it just seemed raw and true. I was enthralled with the lives of the characters and the human trials they endured. -
I had a very hard time getting into this novel, especially the chapters focused on Ikey Solomon. The high falutin word choices and the over blown descriptions of London’s gritty underbelly got in my way.
However, the out sized characters and their detailed stories drew me in. The incredible research certainly provides a tangible sense of time & place.
3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4 ⭐️ -
Loved this book! This is now the 3rd book I have read by the author and I plan to read more. The first I had read was "The Power of One" which is a truly marvelous book, after that I read "The Persimmon Tree" which was a slow and plodding disappointment to me. And so I came to this book on my Kindle and had no idea what to expect. What I got was a book that held my rapt attention, a book that was a super fast and interesting read, a book that includes two characters that also appear in Charles Dickens book Oliver Twist, and a whole lot of really great history on England, the British legal and penal systen, and Van Diemen's Land, which is now known as Tasmania.
We follow the fortunes of Ikey Solomon (Fagin), a young street urchin in London (The Artful Dodger), Bob Marley, Ikey's estranged and vengeful wife Hannah and her children, Mary Abacas who is truly Ikey's love of his life and who turns from prostitute to business woman when her fortunes turn, and one of the great characters I have ever come across who is eventually known as Sperm Whale Sally!
This is an eventful book that follows the fortunes and misfortunes of Ikey and how he gets in and out of trouble, along with the journey of Mary who is a mathematical whiz with the device that gives her her last name. We follow them through all sorts of adventures in London and then when they all eventually are banished to the penal colony of Van Diemen's Land, and how this trio act and sometimes interact on the island.
It is a wonderful read and is the first of a trilogy, the second being Tommo and Hawk, and for me this was a wonderful and enjoyable read. -
Rating: 3 stars
This is my third Bryce Courtenay book, my second this year, and I am noticing a trend. The premises of his books I am overall interested in - they tend to be historical fiction set in or around Australia (which I appreciate because Australian is a quite a large part of my nationality) and they usually have to do with characters, with a prostitute or two thrown in there, who are down on their luck and pick themselves up to keep going with life. And one thing I think Courtenay does really well in his books is consequences for his characters. If someone gets hurt, they get hurt. So on face value, that sounds like something I would quite enjoy. But I always find that I am really interested in some parts of his books, and then really bored in others. Like, at one point I'm saying "wow! I'm quite intrigued! I want to know more!" and three pages later I'm saying "ugh. Just finish already." But I think I will once again settle on three stars.
Anyway, that was my experience with The Potato Factory, as well as a couple of days ago with Tania and The Power of One last year. I will probably read more Courtenay in future, as my grandfather was quite fond of him and I like to read books family members or close friends enjoy. -
Holy Jesus Palamino, an incredible read, or listen mine, time to move on the next 2 of 3. Tommo & Hawk, the two sons of Mary.....
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Big, brash and epic, The Potato Factory takes us back to early 19th century London and to the early years of England’s penal settlement in Tasmania, “Van Diemen’s Land”. This is the London of Charles Dickens, gritty with poverty, violence, brutality and crime, much of which we come to see, gets exported to Australia.
The Potato Factory is Courtenays’ fictionalized history of Ikey Solomon, his wife Hannah and his erstwhile mistress and business partner, Mary. Ikey is a London Jew, a master “fence”, crafty, despicable and the likely inspiration for Dicken’s Fagin in Oliver Twist. Ikey’s schemes and machinations eventually catch up with him, and he, and separately Hannah and Mary, get “transported” to Van Diemen’s Land.
This story, whether completely true or not, is a powerful tale of social injustice and greed and of our ability to overcome this. It is also a lush and vivid portrait of this time in English and Australian history, lovingly researched and clearly Courtenay’s homage to the grit and determination that characterized the European settlement of Down Under. The characters are all richly textured and memorable, truly Dickensian, and the story line, with its’ plot twists and intrigues, is an emotional roller-coaster of a ride. The Potato Factory is story-telling at its best.
And I cannot finish without giving another strong plug for the audiobook, narrated by Humphrey Bower. His voicings and narration bring a life to this story that is truly amazing. The Potato Factory is 4-½ star book, that I will easily round up to 5, and the performance by Mr. Bower, 5+ stars. -
I picked up The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtenay, looked at it, flipped to the last page and groaned, a whopper of a book and one I’ve had on my shelf for many many years (possibly because of its size and it being the first volume in The Potato Factory Trilogy) so it was high time I moved it up to my TBR (coffee table) pile however, to peruse 800 pages plus seemed like a huge task at this time (so many challenges to complete), I grabbed my phone, checked the Borrowbox app and there it was, with a sigh of relief and a big smile on my face I tuned in and listened to what was the most epic, brutal and impressive story I’ve read/listened to in a while. It’s a remarkable book, but Humphrey Bower’s stunning narration was certainly part of what made it so enthralling.
The writing is very explicit, there were quite a few parts that were extremely savage which had me crying like a baby. It took Bryce Courtenay 20 years to write this novel so one can imagine the research that went into this book! The history in this novel was fascinating but the hardships the characters endured was frightening and just so bloody awful.
As far as I know Humphrey Bower has narrated 75 books - that’s beyond amazing and I’m determined to listen to most of them that’s how phenomenal Humphrey Bower is at narrating books.
*Book #65/72 of my 2019 coffee table to-read challenge, cont. 2020 -
It took me a few months to get through this audiobook and every now and again I had to stop listening because it was just too much: the violence, the poverty, the lack of compassion. Yet I would always pick it up again, keen to find out what happens next, because throughout the story there is a glimmer of hope in its characters' grit, their will to survive and find peace, however short lived. Bryce Courtenay is an impressive storyteller who is sometimes ruthless to his readers while describing the realities of life in the poverty-stricken London and Van Diemen's land (Tasmania). He is far from subtle but he also makes it impossible to stay cold and disinterested in the fate of his characters.
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Holy sh*t, that was gruesome! It felt like Dickens meets Peaky Blinders. But what an incredible story. The effort that must have gone into the research and writing of this book is inconceivable. The subject matter is difficult to digest, but the storytelling pulls the reader along.
It took me forever to get through the first half of the book. No one escaped the horrific circumstances of the times, and I had to stop listening from time to time because some things were so disturbing. However, the book's last third was absolutely riveting, and I could not turn it off. I highly recommend the Audible version. Humphrey Bower is exceptional! -
My second attempt at a Courtenay, and will be my last. I just don’t like his writing style or the way he goes about telling a story. Initially I was intrigued enough to see where the story went, but as with ‘Power of One’ the long-winded writing got the better of me. This felt like some sort of ribald dark comedy, with falling on bosoms and getting tangled in skirts, amongst gang rapes and beatings; a smattering of Dickensian darkness with the antics of Richardson’s Pamela. Skipped ahead after 130 pages, but found nothing to entice me to stay.
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This is the first in the Australian trilogy:
1.The Potato Factory
2.Tommo & Hawk
3.Solomon's Song
I was hooked after the first chapter!
Bryce Courtenay is noted for his ability to weave dramatic, graphic, human stories with historic fact. He did not disappoint with this book. I could not put it down. We meet Ikey, Hannah and Mary in 1820's England.. "dark times, bleak times, hard times". They survive in the under belly of English society. Their lives and their stories are woven together..Deemed criminals by English courts, they all end up in the penal colony in Van Diemen's Land (Australia). Here the paths their lives take continue to cross.. We cheer for Mary, hate Hannah and always wonder about Ikey. As the last chapter in this book comes to a close, Mary and her two sons, Tommo and Hawk,reunited after horrific events, have finally acquired the financial means to move forward, and upward, in society, as a family and in the legal business world. Looking forward to starting book #2 in the Trilogy: Tommo & Hawk. -
This book has the quality of a folk legend re-imagined. The characters loom larger than life and protagonists endure years of the worst kinds of suffering before triumphing over their oppressors. The first half of this novel, set in nineteenth century London, is slowly-paced, but packed with eccentric, Dickensian characters, complete with dialect. The very eventful second half takes place mostly in Australia during its penal colony days, as the feud that boils for over 700 pages comes to a head. The ambitious scope of the story is realized with solidly-crafted prose and compelling characters. Though some of these characters come uncomfortably close to stereotypes, the feeling that the story was being shared with me by an eccentric uncle made this feel okay somehow.
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Set in the early 19th century, THE POTATO FACTORY explores the lives of London's thieves, con men, prostitutes, street urchins and lowlife who, suffering from England's social and political inequalities, are sent to the penal colony of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania). This Dickensian tale with larger-than-life characters and plenty of pulp is not for the fainthearted as master storyteller Bryce Courtenay spares no sordid or salacious detail. I loved the book but at 852 pages found it to be overly long. Like all good storytellers, Courtenay digresses, occasionally going into way too much detail without necessarily furthering the plot or providing additional insight into the characters.
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Bryce Courtenay is fast becoming one of my favorite authors…..The Power of One was one of those life changing novels that we are most fortunate to read in our lifetimes.
The Potato Factory is just as good……ordered the next two in this trilogy, can’t wait to start the next one! -
Because of my passing interest in the antipodes, after I read its description I thought maybe this book would give me some insight into life in Australia during the country's early years, specifically the first half of the nineteenth century.
Unfortunately, I never got to the part where the main characters actually moved to Australia from England. They were so crass and disgusting, it became impossible for me to continue reading about them and their dissolute antics. So I gave it up, after about 100 pages. Time is too precious to waste it on despicable lowlifes. -
This is a historical fiction about the most notorious criminal in England in the early 1800's and his exile to Australia. It reads to me like a Dickens novel, set in the same time period. I've never actually read any other books that tell the story of how Australia was settled and how the convicts were brought here and treated once they arrived. The first half of the book is wordy, slow and hard to read. And only at the halfway point it gradually accelerates. So I doubt very much whether I’ll pick up the next two books in the trilogy. This one was good, but not that good.
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It took me some time to get into this one. Everything about this book is so descriptive. About a quarter in it finally hit, I couldn’t stop reading this soap opera drama. My Australian husband recommended I read this series. He read it when he was much younger and thought it would be a good history lesson of sorts about Australia through this historical fiction series. If you’ve started and can’t get into it, hang on!! I can’t wait to read the next book in this series.
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Listened to on my IPod. Amazing Narration with Humphrey Bower doing many dialects with great skill. The story is about Fagan, the "villain" from Oliver, who is a real life character who Dickens used to tell the story of the young thieves. Much of the story takes place in Australia after his deportment for his crimes.
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Could I read it again? Maybe. Liked Courtenay's presentation of the then world ... but the books began to out-page me ... the pace as the series continued plod, packing too many pages. Tired of living in Courtenay's created world.
Still, a solid four-star the first time.
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2016 vreading challenge: a historical fiction novel.
In many ways, The Potato Factory could be described as a manifesto of the underdog wrapped in a scathing indictment of early 19th British culture: it features many characters from traditionally downtrodden classes who succeed through hard work, wits, and pure gumption despite the verdict of “society” that they were born to be trash, are inherently trash, will always be trash, and shouldn't even bother to dream of a better life because they are trash and trash doesn't deserve to be anywhere but the dump. Nearly everyone featured in the story is born to that most downtrodden of classes: the poor. In his foreword, Courtenay describes this novel as his personal thank you note to his adopted home country of Australia, and in many ways you could say the story of the underdog is the very manifesto of Australia itself – the will to show the world that a bunch of people “society” cast off as trash and scum can make it through hard work, wit and pure gumption, and they don't need silly things like “good breeding” or boarding school manners to win at life. You might even say that the idea that people should be judged by their words and deeds, and not by their birth, class, upbringing or money is an essential part of the Australian character. (Of course, it took them a while to apply that sort of thinking to the aborigines... I think Courtenay is engaging in pure bombast when he boasts several times in the foreword that Australia is “the most egalitarian country in the world.” Suuuuure it is... if you're white and male.)
Underdog #1: Our spunky heroine, Mary Abacus, is a woman who spends a significant part of her early life whoring, and later running a whorehouse, simply because whoring is about the only job open to a woman when she can't get a reference as a servant, and no one will hire a woman as a clerk. She faces first-hand the hypocrisy of a society that says the decent jobs should go to the men because a woman can always make a living on her back, and then scorns her for being a whore when she took the only path left to her. Although a significant chunk of the story is about Ikey Solomon, Mary is the clear lodestone and the character you can genuinely like and root for. Despite her rough upbringing and even rougher treatment as a young career woman on the streets of London, and the many brutal hardships she faces, she retains her inherent sense of fairness, compassion, and decency. That's not to say she's a pushover or an angel – she's sharp as a tack and as cutthroat as she needs to be to survive. But she's also smart and has a head for business, and she knows that a bit of human decency and tough-but-fair treatment costs very little and repays itself in spades in respect and loyalty earned.
Underdog #2: Our hero (or perhaps anti-hero), Ikey Solomon, is a notorious fence, con artist, forger, and criminal jack of all trades. He's a disgusting wretch and is almost as hard to truly like as Mary is hard to dislike. But his loquacious patter lulls one into almost-liking him, if for no other reason than that he's entertaining. And as criminals go, he could be worse. He's not a cruel or brutal man, primarily because he's too cowardly and physically wimpy to ever intimidate anyone. So he operates on slinking flattery and guile instead, but is an earnest believer in the principle of “always leave a little salt on the bread.” In other words, don't take so much that the people you deal with can't make their own livings. He and his odious wife Hannah richly deserve one another, but the story is written in a way that will ensure you dislike Ikey less than you dislike Hannah. She and Ikey are two of a kind, but for some reason she comes off much the worse as one of the clear villains. Perhaps it was that bit where but let's face it, we hated her long before that, even though in every other way, she's virtually indistinguishable from Ikey.
A lot of reviewers have described the character of Ikey Solomon as a recognizable lift of Dickens’ famous character Fagan of Oliver Twist. However, considering Ikey isn’t fictional but was a real person, I suspect the reverse is true – that the real Ikey Solomon inspired the fictional character of Fagan. (Bit of trivia: Dickens himself makes a cameo when he interviews Sparrow Fart for a newspaper article about Ikey.)
Underdog #3: The story is peopled with a motley supporting cast of whores, thugs, pickpockets, con artists, assorted convicts, and drunks, who are as often as not proven to be good of heart in their own way and simply trying to make their way in a hard world that has made them hard. They prove themselves capable of small, and sometimes large, acts of friendship and loyalty. They, as much as the main players, prove the story's point that people, on some level, deserve better than to be wholly judged by their class or wealth or even criminal lifestyle.
Villainy: In contrast, the empowered classes of the story repeatedly prove themselves to be generally (with a few notable exceptions) far worse people than the “scum” they despise on principle. They are ruled by bigotry, hypocrisy, smirking dishonesty, insatiable greed, and most notably, a depth of not only apathy, but open revilement, toward anyone they deem “beneath” them that is almost unfathomable by today's standards. It's unclear whether they are truly any worse than those of the lower classes, but they have the power to inflict far more misery on others, and they exercise it freely. No wonder these people were able to view the entire native population of Australia as mere vermin to be exterminated – they thought little better of the poorer classes of London. If they had been around during Hitler's time, they would have lauded him. Most of the story's graphic atrocities (and there are some doozies) are perpetrated by these sorts of people.
Oh, did you want to know about the plot?? I'll just say it's a rollicking (and often harrowing) adventure that involves lots of unsavory people in low places and Bad Things happening to our heroes. I never found it slow, and while it wasn't quite “couldn't put it down” riveting, the pages kept turning for me.
Minor Gripes
Much of the broad outlines of the story are based on real historical people and events, and as a result, Courtenay’s narrative style wavers between telling an up-close, personal, and immediate story based on the characters’ own experiences and perceptions, and pulling back to a broader, bird’s-eye historian’s perspective in which he continuously violates the novelist’s “show; don’t tell” rule. This is particularly true toward the beginning, in which he spends long passages explaining our characters’ personalities and motivations to us instead of simply showing them to us through their words and actions.
Some of Courtenay's portrayals of inter-racial relationships seemed off. Unfortunately, not the horrible stuff – to my sorrow, that’s all too believable. What I had a problem with is the idea that Mary, even as good and compassionate a person as we know she is, could really be as open-minded as portrayed, given the culture of the time. -
I listened to the audiobook of 23 hours. Fabulous! This book took the author 20 years to write due to research and accuracy. The story is based on true individuals of Ikey Solomon and Mary Sparrow who were convicts and sent to Australia to serve their sentences. MR. Cannon did a wonderful job telling their stories of street debauchery and Ikey's life of crime and Mary's good nature and tenacity to overcome society's views of criminals and women. The actor who read was superb! This is the first book of a trilogy and I'm looking forward to reading more of the Solomon's story.
