A black comedy that becomes a feel-good novel? Hard to believe, but this book manages it and does so with style and charm. At first sight the characters are cartoonish: a deeply unpleasant father and his four children: a not-very-bright obsessive, a reckless entrepreneur, a control freak and a party girl. Why would we want to read about them? Well, it’s worth doing because the first quick sketch is filled out with a sure hand, adding relief, light and shade and very soon the reader can identify with at least some of the characters. It’s still a cartoon, but now a cartoon for a lovely tapestry set in a fertile landscape.

The plot is simple. Cranky old dad, Tom, has laboured to keep the family estate thriving; he has endured drought and hard times, like any other farmer. Unlike many, he has overcome all this and the land (10,000 acres, always referred to as ‘she’) is now worth millions. He has also been deeply disappointed by his mother, his children, and, though he won’t really admit it, his wife, who died while their youngest child was only six years old. He vents his anger on the children, all of whom left home as soon as they could, by asking them to perform what seems to be a ludicrous and impossible task: to make his coffin to his specifications. It turns out this is not quite impossible as the obsessive child has a small business making coffins for pets in the local village, Coorong, which is somewhere near Albury, NSW.

Coorong is a disappointment to the children as they gather for the reading of the will. The pub is run-down, the church, undertakers and convenience shop are closed just when you need them. The neighbouring property is neglected and there seems to be no such thing as neighbourliness—at any rate nobody is around to offer any help—and the police seems to be incompetent. There are two solicitors’ offices, a large one, with which Tom has dealt all his life, and a much smaller one, run by an Italian-Australian who might be venal. Tom seems to have hoped so, as he had hired him to administer his Deed and enforce the coffin-making test. Here the author has lapsed—I am sure Coorong can seem quite as ghastly as she makes out, but why pick on an immigrant to do the dirty work?

Given all this, why do we feel for the characters? Probably because we’ve all been there, we are those people or we have family and friends who are. Their quite ordinary stories are so well told that we feel immediate sympathy—a sort of a banality of suffering. What stood out to me was the way in which the four siblings join up, not for gain but because they are family. They pull together to build the coffin, doing what they have to do, while also looking after the farm and their own emotional circumstances. There are some hilarious mishaps, but it all works out in the end: the entrepreneur gets the money he needs, the control freak the control she needs; the obsessive and the party girl each get what they didn’t know they needed. However, Tom is not quite redeemed (in my eyes), for his last appearance shows he can still be quite vindictive.

Another reason why this story appeals is because it is one we sort-of know already. The story of a family and a legacy reminds us of King Lear and, among other spin-offs, of Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres (1991). There is also the timeless myth of the ‘near-impossible task’, as in Hercules, or the search for the Holy Grail, in which we know that the seekers have got to acknowledge their own frailties.

So this black comedy is ultimately a morality tale—a highly enjoyable one that I can strongly recommend. It is very well written—in the vernacular with rather a lot of four-letter words—but they are appropriate in the circumstances. The printed book is very nicely produced, with a great cover by Christabella Designs.

Author: Susannah Begbie
Publisher: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 9780733650796
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This book review is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
Related story: Author interview – Susannah Begbie