Our scene is set in the Kentish Plains in north-west Tasmania in the year 1874. In the Duggan’s barn, lit by lanterns, swells a hundred-strong crowd of people. They have come to hear the strangers speak. These strangers are preachers, dressed in long black coats and flowery waistcoats, clutching their bibles.
Among the throng are the Hattons; 14-year-old Echo, her mother, Susannah, and her granny, Eliza. As the preachers’ voices rise, so does the excitement of the crowd. Some feel the call to come forward. The preachers have caused a stir in the district and within the Hatton family. Who will be saved?
The Hattons live on a farm called Paradise. This novel gives us a snapshot of a time in their life from the different viewpoints of five family members; Grandmother Eliza, her daughter, Susannah and three of Susannah’s children, oldest Jack, Eddie and 14-year-old Echo.
The Hattons, like all the other families in the district, are resilient. What choices do you have in the Tasmanian wilderness when tigers roam as you work to make farmland out of the rugged Australian bush? These people are faced with the raw hardships of life. Accidents happen, women are in labour, decisions need to be made on what to plant and how to make money. There is terrible loss, the drudgery of constant work, yet the beauty of the bush is seen through a child’s eyes. There’s also the thrill of the flicker of love.
I was unsure as I started reading but this book grew on me as I came to know each of the five members of the Hatton family and understand how they were seen, or in Eliza’s case, how their same experiences were viewed differently.
Interestingly, the Indigenous people of the area make hardly a ripple in this story.
On A Bright Hillside In Paradise is a contemplative read. Events that families experienced in this era, even terrible ones, are faced with the same stoicism. The story does not rise and fall in huge climaxes, as that is not how a family on the land in 1874 manages. It is simply to forge on.
Reviewed by Jane Stephens
0 Comments