WINDFLOWERS

Stouthearted men and plucky young women take on the Australian outback.

Ellie, at 14, is on the road with her jobless father during the 1930s when a killer dust storm overtakes them, suffocating him. Crying bitterly, Ellie buries him in the baked earth and trudges on alone until rescued by two young men on horseback, shy Joe and his hell-raising brother Charlie. They take her for the boy she claims to be and bring her to Warratah, her aunt Aurelia’s cattle station in Queensland. Aurelia, a formidable but kindly woman who smokes a pipe, is happy to see her niece, though her mother Alicia isn’t. Aurelia loves Australia and has never returned to her native England and wealthy parents, but her sister Alicia, a haughty gold-digger, wants nothing more than to swan it in London again and pick up another rich husband. So Ellie is raised by Aurelia and tags around after Joe and Charlie. When WWII breaks out, Joe enlists, along with most of the men in Australia, while, bereft, the women of Warratah soldier on through a terrible drought. War’s end brings changes, good and bad: Joe is presumed dead in action, and so Ellie develops a crush on Charlie, whose war wound (in his skull) makes him behave strangely. He rapes her during a drunken interlude, and Ellie later realizes to her horror that she’s pregnant. Joe’s unexpected return precipitates a crisis with far-reaching consequences. Charlie dies before he can marry her, but Joe steps up to do the right thing. As the years go by, a complex inheritance arrangement fosters rancorous conflict between Ellie’s daughter by Charlie (Claire) and her daughter by Joe (Leanna). By the close, though, the firm guidance of Aunt Aurelia leads all to reconciliation.

Narrative sweep and an evocative sense of place keep this from sinking under the weight of its contrivances. The Australian-born McKinley (Matilda’s Last Waltz, not reviewed) is no Colleen McCullough, but this is fine even so.