Bryce Courtenay: Four Fires

By JOHN CONNOR

Don't forget to take the spoon out of the sink before you turn on the tap. This is the Maloney family motto. None of the Maloneys take the slightest notice of it. One way or another they all get splashed.

Right from the start the Maloneys are up against it. A fifth-generation, Irish-Catholic Australian family, they are lowly rubbish collectors in the small town of Yankalillee. There is Tommy, the father, a drunken Irishman, his mind burned beyond recognition by the fire of the Second World War. There are the boys, Mole, Mike and Bozo: intelligent and talented, they are nevertheless forced to be up at 5 each morning to work on the rubbish truck. While this is happening Sarah, the daughter, forgets to take the spoon out of the sink and gets pregnant to a Protestant boy.

Then the explosive Australian bush bursts into flames and threatens the whole town. Thank God for the heroism of small-town rubbish collectors and thank God for Nancy the big-hearted, bigger-bellied mother whose fiery passion keeps the family together. No wonder the Maloney children go on to do great things in this world.

Hold on a minute. A drunken Irish father? A fierce but lovable matriarch? Gifted children rising above their humble origins? This looks suspiciously like another variation on the productive-virtues-of-poverty theme.

But the only thing poverty produces for certain is more poverty: dirt-poor children do not go on to become brilliant doctors, fabulously successful dress designers, business tycoons and university professors.

There is something dishonest or at the very least naive about novels like Four Fires - but, so what?

Everyone loves stories about pompous people pulled down a peg or two, bullies belittled, cheats outwitted, heroic rescues and dreams of love come true. When one happens along in Four Fires, Courtenay tells them so well it is impossible not to keep turning the pages.

* John Connor is an Auckland writer and lecturer.

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