BR: The Shiralee (D'Arcy Niland)

Amazon Link: The Shiralee

A shiralee is a swag, a burden, and Macauley's is Buster, his four year old daughter. Macauley took the child after returning home to find his wife in bed with another man. He took the child to spite his wife, expecting her to come after him, begging for the return of their daughter, but that did not happen. Months passed and still there was no word and as Macauley moved from place to place, living a drifter's life, roughing it with his child in tow, he became accustomed to the company – though he would never admit that to himself, or to Buster.

The book starts off several months after he has left Sydney, after abducting the child and beating his wife's lover half to death. The reader finds father and child on the road, the little girl dressed in shapeless rags, a sunhat on her head, her form near indisguishable as to gender. Macauley is about as rough as they come, and he does very little to accommodate his daughter, towing her along as a stray dog, or an inanimate rucksack. Despite his harshness (that borders on cruelty), I immediately liked this rough, confused, very masculine loner who trusts no-one, spends little time reflecting on his behaviour and sometimes, in brief moments of insight, recognises that he's an A-grade asshole, but does nothing to change it.

The opening paragraphs read:

There was a man who had a cross and his name was Macauley. He put Australia at his feet, he said, in the only way he knew how. His boots spun the dust from its roads and his body waded its streams. The black lines on the map, and the red, he knew them well. He built his fires in a thousand places and slept on the banks of rivers. The grass grew over his tracks, but he knew where they were when he came again.

He had two swags, one of them with legs and a cabbage-tree hat, and that one was the main difference between him and others who take to the road, following the sun for their bread and butter. Some have dogs. Some have horses. Some have women. And they all have mates and companions, or for this reason and that, all of some use. But with Macauley it was this way: he had a child and the only reason he had it was because he was stuck with it.

As he moves from town to town, searching for work, hospitality and money to tide him over, Macauley finds trouble, reignites old friendships and incurs the wrath of strangers. Bubbling below the surface of his man is a brutal violent streak, a rage that Macauley keeps barely tempered. Several men find out the hard way that this is a man not to be crossed, and despite the near lethal beatings he doles out (his daughter witness to some of them) in my mind he remains a good man, fair, honest, with solid instincts. Only once did my judgment waver, when Buster is deathly ill and Macauley chooses pride over an offer of assistance that could save her life. I believe he did the wrong thing by flouting the offered hospitality, but as a vehicle to demonstrate his character arc, it's beautifully executed and a testament to the writer.Pure luck and questionable bush medicine sees Buster through her grave illness, and the reader gains valuable insight into Macauley's state of mind. In contrast, when faced with a similar situation later in the book we are shown he has matured emotionally and learned from the mistakes of others.

This is a rough, simple story, beautifully written, rich with old Australia -- the raw, dusty, unkempt drifter's life that so few of us now could even imagine. The print edition I have is prefaced by an introduction by Les Murray who explains that the author employed some poetic licence in having Macauley solely reliance on walking as a means to get around. In the 50's, when this book was written, Les considers that would have been an unlikely scenario. The factual imperfection does not draw from the richness of the story.

I do believe Macauley is the roughest, hardest, least lovable protagonist I have yet met -- yet I enjoyed every moment I spent with him. It was also delightful to read the dialogue, conversations loaded with Australian slang, so heavy at times that even I, a country girl, had to take a moment in order to understand what was being said.

The characterisations are particularly well crafted, with attention to each and every person with whom Macauley interacts, so much so that they are distinct, imaginable people. This is a skill of which I am most envious.

The door opened and the doorway was plugged with a gargantuan female. This was the woman Sweeney called the Cow. She had a casky bosom, as if stuffed, an uddery bulge against the garish print dress covered with yellow and vermilion flowers. An amber scarf was tied around her head and tucked in, giving her a poly look. Her face was a massive blob of radiant flesh, with the features a long way in from the perimeter as though they had been superimposed, forming a face within a face. There was a vague, elusive doll-like prettiness about it.

Now, imagine if he had just said she was fat! The paragraph that follows offers more evidence of the vastness of this woman, but not limited to physical form. D'Arcy goes to great lengths to bring her alive as a loving, boisterous, incredible woman with a huge heart. I fell in love with her. I wish she were my aunt.

The writing is brilliant: restrained, crisp, accurate and at times heartlessly brutal, in keeping with Macauley's character. This book reminded me of my grandfather on my father's side... though, maybe the character Beauty may have been a closer match.

Rating ***** out of five. (this book should be on school reading lists, bloody violence and all).