The Melbourne writer, activist and academic Tony Birch has a well-earned reputation as one Australia’s master craftsmen of fiction, in both the short story and novel form. Often with children protagonists, his narratives give us glimpses of life in the tougher neighbourhoods, inner-city suburbs such as (pre-gentrified) Collingwood, where he has set many of his short stories as well as his novel Ghost River, published in 2015.
Women & Children takes place in the mid-1960s and is again set in one of the less affluent inner-city pockets of Melbourne. The novel follows the adventures of Joe Cluny, “a wide-eyed eleven-year-old boy in year six”. Joe is in almost constant conflict with the sisters who run the local Catholic school: they’re all named Mary, and they all seem to have it in for him. His older sister Ruby, on the other hand, is a model child – she even wins a special trip to the country, awarded to the best student at the school. Joe’s mum, Marion, does her best to look after her two kids while working long shifts at the local dry cleaners and his grandfather, Charlie, has worked as a street-sweeper.
