Reviewed by Ian Lipke
This novel opens in 1898 with a quick sketch of a father who is about to be sentenced for a long term in prison. The story then switches to the lives of two boys, Billy and Tommy Smith, forced to grow up amid the harsh environment of the streets of Sydney’s Miller’s Point. Theirs is a harsh scrabble for existence, made worse when their violent father is returned early from prison in 1910.
Meanwhile, another aspect to existence in Sydney, begins to play out. In the wealthy eastern suburbs, Charles Davies is living an entirely different life. He is benefiting from his father’s business acumen and insatiable, unyielding greed. Charles wants for nothing.
And then an incident on the Point results in the deaths of the fathers of both sets of boys. A hatred is born that outlives the young men. An epic saga begins and takes the boys from Sydney to Gallipoli and the killing fields of France in World War I, to the international hot den of Darwin, and the opal fields at Lightning Ridge. The men remain focused on one outcome, revenge.
One aspect which makes this tale convincing is the simple direct style of writing. There is nothing complicated about the story if you are ready to believe as I am that boys with the backgrounds such as these would have the moral beliefs that those who stood in their way needed to be removed. Billy was particularly prone to violence without thought while his brother, Tommy, tried to keep a more balanced perspective on life. The third character, Charles, had received an upbringing that never distinguished between right and wrong. Consequently, his actions were ruinous and immoral.
The most interesting character is Tommy. A man with whom Tommy formed a deep friendship was Mr Ashe. A veteran of the diggings on the gold fields in Victoria in the mid-1850s, he had matured to the point where his stories of exploration, frustration, innovation, triumph and failure were now viewed from a mature framework. As a consequence, “Tommy and Mr Ashe could stand in comfortable silence … only intermittently interrupted by thoughts, or comments, or questions” without either being annoyed by incessant opinions. It was from a man like Ashe that Tommy learned his own standard of maturity.
Billy lacked such a friend or mentor. As a result, his responses when things got tough was to fight without considering consequences. He was therefore often in trouble particularly with Charles who expected the world to fall into line as he required. The women in the book were not expected to think but just do as they were told. However, some of them acted instinctively in choosing the right action to take. Within the story each of the male characters was able to find a mate who matched his chosen lifestyle. When the men were away at the war their women folk worked on their own initiative to make a significant contribution to their society.
However the main thrust of the book explores the activities of the men, the impact of hatred and demand for vengeance in the culture in which the men operated.
The story opens up our knowledge of early 20th Century life during the period when Australia faced its greatest dangers. The author’s fascination with the darker aspects of the human condition is on full display in this novel, Sins of the Fathers.
Sins of the Fathers
(2025)
by John Byrnes
Macmillan
ISBN:978-1-76126-819-9
$34.99; 414pp