| Author: | Rae Harvie | ISBN: | 9781483522814 |
| Publisher: | BookBaby | Publication: | March 24, 2014 |
| Imprint: | Language: | English |
| Author: | Rae Harvie |
| ISBN: | 9781483522814 |
| Publisher: | BookBaby |
| Publication: | March 24, 2014 |
| Imprint: | |
| Language: | English |
Daniel and Molly O'Shea and their twelve children leave Elliston in 1925 to take up a government settler's block five miles out of Yaninee, on the west coast of South Australia. Molly promises God that she will become a catholic if her seven-year-old daughter is found safe from the bowels of the scrub at the half-way point. After three days Maggie is found, but when Molly loses the baby she is expecting at the new farm, she decides to have nothing to do with a God that can give and take at a whim. In 1929 when the drought begins, the forerunner to the Great Depression of 1930, wheat prices fall at a time when the farm has not built up enough equity to withstand a couple of years without income. Daniel becomes a shadow of his violent father, abusing Molly and the children both physically and emotionally. The Baker's Dozen link is broken a few years later when one of the children drown. The story has much humour in the early years, but tough issues are included later. This story is about Molly's losses; a loss of a close relationship with Daniel, loss of babies and children, friends and loss of identity. It is also about the vulnerability of women at the hands of men. I have explored the strategies characters use to cope with hardship and abuse, and how it can be connected to the past. The story encapsulates laughter, tears, suffering and fortitude.
Daniel and Molly O'Shea and their twelve children leave Elliston in 1925 to take up a government settler's block five miles out of Yaninee, on the west coast of South Australia. Molly promises God that she will become a catholic if her seven-year-old daughter is found safe from the bowels of the scrub at the half-way point. After three days Maggie is found, but when Molly loses the baby she is expecting at the new farm, she decides to have nothing to do with a God that can give and take at a whim. In 1929 when the drought begins, the forerunner to the Great Depression of 1930, wheat prices fall at a time when the farm has not built up enough equity to withstand a couple of years without income. Daniel becomes a shadow of his violent father, abusing Molly and the children both physically and emotionally. The Baker's Dozen link is broken a few years later when one of the children drown. The story has much humour in the early years, but tough issues are included later. This story is about Molly's losses; a loss of a close relationship with Daniel, loss of babies and children, friends and loss of identity. It is also about the vulnerability of women at the hands of men. I have explored the strategies characters use to cope with hardship and abuse, and how it can be connected to the past. The story encapsulates laughter, tears, suffering and fortitude.
