Jonathan Arnold reviewed The road from Coorain by Jill K. Conway
Review of 'The road from Coorain' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Solid memoir on growing up in 40s Australia, first in the Outback on a sheep farm that nearly collapses due to a long drought, then in Sydney as she tries to adjust to life a smart, pretty woman in a very chauvinistic academic world. She loses some important people way too early, and her mom begins to lose her grip on reality.
I enjoyed the book and it was well written. I definitely liked it better when it was in Coorain, the sheep farm her parents bought and settled about 10 hours west of Sydney. A very different world, well described from a ten year old's perspective. When her fatherless family moved to Sydney, leaving the farm in caretaker's hands, the book bogged down for me. It became more of a "normal" story of the youngest daughter trying to come to grips with many pressures. While my growing up years …
Solid memoir on growing up in 40s Australia, first in the Outback on a sheep farm that nearly collapses due to a long drought, then in Sydney as she tries to adjust to life a smart, pretty woman in a very chauvinistic academic world. She loses some important people way too early, and her mom begins to lose her grip on reality.
I enjoyed the book and it was well written. I definitely liked it better when it was in Coorain, the sheep farm her parents bought and settled about 10 hours west of Sydney. A very different world, well described from a ten year old's perspective. When her fatherless family moved to Sydney, leaving the farm in caretaker's hands, the book bogged down for me. It became more of a "normal" story of the youngest daughter trying to come to grips with many pressures. While my growing up years were perfectly fine, I don't have any desire to relive them, either mine or someone else's, so even most "coming of age" movies leave me cool. But I persevered as she entered college and tried to figure out her path.
The books ends as she gets on a plane to Boston, to begin her post-graduate work at Harvard. Oddly enough, she currently lives just down the road from me. A small world, and this book does a very nice job of explaining how it can become so.