This is the first Australian historical fiction dealing with convicts that I’ve read (as far as I can remember anyway) and I was truly looking forward to it. It’s a classic written in the late 19th century so I guess it was contemporary fiction when it was first written.Basically, the story follows an intrinsically good man who has a run of ‘bad luck’ throughout the book for a period of 20 years of his life. It is amazing just how much ‘bad luck’ a person can have and yet despite the harshness of a convict’s life, he has managed to preserve his humanity though there are periods where, understandably, he fell into the pits of despair and misery.I continued to read and hope for a better luck – something to turn around his present misery right to the last page! And the end… Oh, the end…!!! I will leave you to read for yourself.
