The thing that did kind of concern me was that Meggie is just a child when they meet (although she is an adult when their brief dalliance takes place) and it felt a bit uncomfortably like grooming, even though that’s not exactly what Ralph is doing. For so long, no one would or could ever question a priest. I’ve never thought the celibacy thing expected of priests was very normal and it’s probably the reason you get loads of them abusing people, especially children because their authority is deemed to be absolute. It wasn’t really the affair that bothered me – I’m not a Catholic and I’m not scandalised by a priest having sex. Look everyone knows that this book involves an affair between a woman and a priest, it’s no spoiler. For Meggie, Ralph is the perhaps the first person to really see her, a girl in a pack of boys, boys considered more valuable especially in terms of things like running a farm. It also means that young Meggie, about 11 when they move, meets Father Ralph de Bricassart, the local priest although he is destined for great things. Drogheda is a behemoth of a property: 225,000 acres or something and Paddy and his boys are to learn it and run it. Their life in NZ is spent in poverty, until Paddy gets an opportunity from his sister in Australia, to take over the family farm that was her husband’s. In time they’ll add 3 more children, all boys. It centres around the Cleary family – Paddy and his wife Fiona (Fee) and their hoard of children – about 5 or 6 boys and then a girl, Meggie. The Thorn Birds is a sweeping family saga spanning decades, beginning in New Zealand, moving the outback of New South Wales and then as far abroad as Rome and London. But when this was chosen (voted) as a choice for my online bookclub, it gave me an excuse to finally tackle it. I bought this copy several years ago, intending to read more books classed as Australian classics and didn’t get around to any of them. So somehow I made it all the way to 38 years of age without ever having read The Thorn Birds despite the fact it was published before I was born, despite the fact that it’s an acknowledged Australian classic. For Meggie loves Father Ralph de Bricassart, a man who wields enormous power within the Catholic Church…Īs powerful, moving and unforgettable as when it originally appeared, THE THORN BIRDS remains a novel to be read … and read again.

With life’s unpredictability, it is love that is their unifying thread, but it is a love shadowed by the anguish of forbidden passions. Stoic matriarch Fee, her devoted husband, Paddy, and their headstrong daughter, Meggie, experience joy, sadness and magnificent triumph in the cruel Australian outback. The bestselling Australian novel of all time, THORN BIRDS is the sweeping saga of three generations of the Cleary family.

The thorn birds paperback