Jessica by Bryce Courtenay

I finished Jessica by Bryce Courtenay in one day of holiday reading. It’s a powerful novel by the master storyteller set mostly in rural New South Wales from the years leading up to the First World War through to the Great Depression.

Although gripping, the end left me disenchanted and after some belated sleep I woke up a little annoyed.

Amazon’s description of the story:

“Jessica” is based on the real life of a remarkable young Australian woman who defied the conventions of her time. She had a stubborn streak and the courage to act out her convictions … in spite of the consequences. This compelling, sweeping story is her personal fight for justice against enormous odds, and a testimony to the power of the human spirit to triumph over adversity.

Jessica has a few wins along the highway of life, but mostly she is mowed down, left abandoned on the roadside, mowed down again, run off the road and eventually run over.

Quite depressing really.

I started reading Bryce Courtenay’s Southern African books about 10 years ago: The Power of One and later White Thorn.

Courtenay was born in South Africa, but has lived most of his life in Sydney.

In more recent times I have read and enjoyed Sylvia, Brother Fish, The Persimmon Tree and Matthew Flinders’ Cat.

Jessica ended strangely. After covering the main character’s tragic life the story switches to focus on an itinerant half-caste named Mary Simpson and her tribulations.

I was waiting to see if Jessica would be reunited with the son who was stolen from her, but the entire final third of the book hardly touched on it.

Perhaps Courtenay was trying to link the “stolen generation” with Jessica’s experience. If so, it didn’t work for me.

I thought the author had “lost the plot” instead.

What annoyed me however, was the way Courtenay promoted stereotypes, glossed superficially over complex social issues and pandered to minorities.

While possibly not intended to be historical fiction, a more balanced analysis was warranted.

Anyone reading the novel will feel the injustice of groups being discriminated against including women, Catholics, immigrants, Jews, Aborigines, the disabled and the insane.

Gays were about the only minority group that didn’t get a mention.

The fact is, none of those groups felt strongly (majority view) at the time they were being discriminated against, or they accepted their situation.

Regarding Aborigines, Courtenay has no doubt researched and discovered incidents that support his scenes of institutional abuse.

However, that in itself is an injustice to the church missions in particular that did provide adequate food and shelter along with a rudimentary education.

It was like Courtenay wanted to present the worst-case examples, which I suppose is an author’s prerogative, albeit a shallow option when the subject matter is political.

The White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) is portrayed in Jessica as a malignant influence.

The fact is many minorities overcame obstacles to achieve success.

That’s where I thought Jessica was heading in the early stages: a young woman making her way successfully in a man’s world.

Instead she is beaten down by her own family and the WASP establishment.

Jessica made choices that contributed to her own demise.

She was a flawed heroine, but part of me wanted her to triumph against adversity.

She failed and the book failed me.

Apparently the story is based on true-life events. True life doesn’t always have a satisfactory ending as the fictional Jessica affirms.