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Harp in the South #3
Poor Man's Orange
First published in 1949 as the sequel to the award-winning "The Harp in the South", this novel continues the story of the Darcy family of Sydney.
It’s the early 50s. The Darcy family have made a home for themselves in Surrey Hills, NSW. The elder daughter, Roie, is pregnant with her second child to her husband Charlie and Rosie’s sister, Dolour, finds comfort in doting over her niece Moira. Father Hughie and Mumma live downstairs, as irrepressible as ever. Continuing the history of the Irish Darcys begun in Missus and continued in The Harp in the South , this third installment of a trilogy reacquaints readers with the vicissitudes of slum life in a Sydney suburb. An unforgettable family and a cast of unforgettable characters enliven a story that is sometimes tragic but often humorous in a time of poverty and destitution, hope and promise.
It’s the early 50s. The Darcy family have made a home for themselves in Surrey Hills, NSW. The elder daughter, Roie, is pregnant with her second child to her husband Charlie and Rosie’s sister, Dolour, finds comfort in doting over her niece Moira. Father Hughie and Mumma live downstairs, as irrepressible as ever. Continuing the history of the Irish Darcys begun in Missus and continued in The Harp in the South , this third installment of a trilogy reacquaints readers with the vicissitudes of slum life in a Sydney suburb. An unforgettable family and a cast of unforgettable characters enliven a story that is sometimes tragic but often humorous in a time of poverty and destitution, hope and promise.
274 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1949
11 people are currently reading
625 people want to read
About the author
Ruth Park
83 books113 followersRuth Park was a New Zealand-born author, who spent most of her life in Australia. She was born in Auckland, and her family later moved to Te Kuiti further south in the North Island of New Zealand, where they lived in isolated areas.
During the Great Depression her working class father worked on bush roads, as a driver, on relief work, as a sawmill hand, and finally shifted back to Auckland as council worker living in a state house. After Catholic primary school Ruth won a partial scholarship to secondary school, but this was broken by periods of being unable to afford to attend. For a time she stayed with relatives on a Coromandel farming estate where she was treated like a serf by the wealthy landowner until she told the rich woman what she really thought of her.
Ruth claimed that she was involved in the Queen Street riots with her father. Later she worked at the Auckland Star before shifting to Australia in 1942. There she married the Australian writer D'Arcy Niland.
Her first novel was The Harp in the South (1948) - a story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which was translated into 10 languages. (Some critics called it a cruel fantasy because as far as they were concerned there were no slums in Sydney.) But Ruth and D'Arcy did live in Sydney slums at Surry Hills. She followed that up with Poor Man's Orange (1949). She also wrote Missus (1985) and other novels, as well as a long-running Australian children's radio show and scripts for film and TV. She created The Muddle-Headed Wombat series of children's books. Her autobiographies are A Fence Around the Cuckoo (1992) and Fishing in the Styx (1993). She also wrote a novel based in New Zealand, One-a-pecker, Two-a-pecker (1957), about gold mining in Otago (later renamed The Frost and The Fire).
Park received awards in Australia and internationally.
Winner of the Dromkeen Medal.
During the Great Depression her working class father worked on bush roads, as a driver, on relief work, as a sawmill hand, and finally shifted back to Auckland as council worker living in a state house. After Catholic primary school Ruth won a partial scholarship to secondary school, but this was broken by periods of being unable to afford to attend. For a time she stayed with relatives on a Coromandel farming estate where she was treated like a serf by the wealthy landowner until she told the rich woman what she really thought of her.
Ruth claimed that she was involved in the Queen Street riots with her father. Later she worked at the Auckland Star before shifting to Australia in 1942. There she married the Australian writer D'Arcy Niland.
Her first novel was The Harp in the South (1948) - a story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which was translated into 10 languages. (Some critics called it a cruel fantasy because as far as they were concerned there were no slums in Sydney.) But Ruth and D'Arcy did live in Sydney slums at Surry Hills. She followed that up with Poor Man's Orange (1949). She also wrote Missus (1985) and other novels, as well as a long-running Australian children's radio show and scripts for film and TV. She created The Muddle-Headed Wombat series of children's books. Her autobiographies are A Fence Around the Cuckoo (1992) and Fishing in the Styx (1993). She also wrote a novel based in New Zealand, One-a-pecker, Two-a-pecker (1957), about gold mining in Otago (later renamed The Frost and The Fire).
Park received awards in Australia and internationally.
Winner of the Dromkeen Medal.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
September 8, 2024
Now if there was one thing more than another that maddened Hughie, it was being prayed for. He was not good friends with God, and with the things that had happened to him, Hughie thought that it was no wonder.
And this quote, from very early in the book, encapsulates a lot of the feckless Hughie's attitudes - which are central to this book.
This is the sequel to The Harp in the South The poverty stricken Darcys are still in Surry Hill, still living in unimaginable squalor, contending with filth, violence, bed bugs & Hughie's alcoholism.
Some of the descriptions are quite harrowing & I will say the book moves in a different direction than I thought it would take from Harp in the South. The grimness of the story is lightened by some humour. For me Park's writing gifts are so complete.
The book still seems episodic - I don't know if, like Harp in the South, this book was originally serialised in a newspaper, but that is how it feels. & writing this makes me realise that Park at her best reminds me of Charles Dickens
I've now read all three parts of this series. Missus is a prequel & I don't feel it added anything to my enjoyment of the story. I would say that one is for Park completists only. I gave it 3.5★, but the other two are 5★ reads.
Still my favourite New Zealand novelist.
And this quote, from very early in the book, encapsulates a lot of the feckless Hughie's attitudes - which are central to this book.
This is the sequel to The Harp in the South The poverty stricken Darcys are still in Surry Hill, still living in unimaginable squalor, contending with filth, violence, bed bugs & Hughie's alcoholism.
Some of the descriptions are quite harrowing & I will say the book moves in a different direction than I thought it would take from Harp in the South. The grimness of the story is lightened by some humour. For me Park's writing gifts are so complete.
The book still seems episodic - I don't know if, like Harp in the South, this book was originally serialised in a newspaper, but that is how it feels. & writing this makes me realise that Park at her best reminds me of Charles Dickens
I've now read all three parts of this series. Missus is a prequel & I don't feel it added anything to my enjoyment of the story. I would say that one is for Park completists only. I gave it 3.5★, but the other two are 5★ reads.
Still my favourite New Zealand novelist.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
February 26, 2013
The Harp in the South trilogy can be called a bittersweet one, but PMO takes it even further. There is a lot of tragedy in this final volume, but Park's writing is a testimony to the hard knocks that life gives us, but how we struggle on regardless, even though we wonder why we do so. The poor man's orange has been tasted by everyone, and I think this book would resonate with all readers.
August 14, 2014
A truly Australian novel which depicts generational poverty in such a way that the reader is confronted with the reality of what poverty truly means.
I found it easy to picture my grandmother living during this time in Australian history. The dirt and pollution from the coal factories, the dull acceptance that the terraces where they were living were to be pulled down and replaced with high-rise, the fact that woman had no expectation of going to school past 14. On the other hand the sense of community was real, people who had nothing always found something to give to those less fortunate than themselves.
I would make this compulsory reading for the teens of today and ask them how and why did living conditions and working conditions 'improve'. I wonder if they have any understanding of the politics and sacrifices involved in creating a society that they now enjoy.
I found it easy to picture my grandmother living during this time in Australian history. The dirt and pollution from the coal factories, the dull acceptance that the terraces where they were living were to be pulled down and replaced with high-rise, the fact that woman had no expectation of going to school past 14. On the other hand the sense of community was real, people who had nothing always found something to give to those less fortunate than themselves.
I would make this compulsory reading for the teens of today and ask them how and why did living conditions and working conditions 'improve'. I wonder if they have any understanding of the politics and sacrifices involved in creating a society that they now enjoy.
August 11, 2013
This book was recommended to me and I read it without having read its predecessor, in the trilogy.
In Poor Man's Orange, we start off right in the middle of the family. The style has a slice-of-life feel. And it's subtle. I didn't immediately know who the hero and heroine were for a long time.
Charlie's transformation is so fantastic. I hate these lazily written books where the hero just has a sudden thought that he loves her and so he’ll be totally different now and become the man we want the heroine to marry.
No! Prove it to me. And Park does. How she does!
Charlie’s fall to the bottom is like a bungee jump in slow motion. We get to agonize for pages and chapters about whether that rope is going to be the right length. Or will he slam headfirst into despair and ruin as do so many people in the slum?
The slum, by the way, achieves that to which all writers either aspire or should aspire, an environment so alive, so vibrant in its detailed reality that it rises to the level of a character in its own right.
What Park does, not by standing on a soapbox and waving a finger at us as she lectures us about not judging the poor for being dirty, but by showing us the absolute impossibility of keeping a clean house when you are impoverished. Mumma is burdened and defeated by filth, Roie destroyed by it. Dolour fights it, but of course she cannot defeat it. The most Dolour ever accomplishes is cleaning one small corner. The way Dolour manages to escape the grip of filth cannot be to overcome it because that would defeat the author’s purpose of showing how impossible it is to defeat dirt when you are poor. Park manages to keep Dolour above it, not of it, by having Dolour turn away from it, to show us the unconquerable cleanliness of her spirit. But the inevitability of dirt reigns supreme in this book. The slum never gets cleaner, never improves, never changes, even as it is about to be wrecked.
The leveling planned for the neighborhood is for the benefit of the land owners and developers, not the poor inhabitants. They will all go somewhere even worse, the elderly shunted off to die prematurely from stress as the homes they spent a lifetime in are knocked down in minutes.
The redemption and triumph of the hero is brilliant. Even as Charlie almost falls into the miasma of sin Dolour feels swirls everywhere around her, ready to suck her and anyone who becomes weak into it, the reader sympathizes with him for the reader has lived through his reasons with him.
And then his transformation. Park earns it. At the end -- no -- I'm not really going to tell you the end. But Charlie's transformation, wow. You get it. You can believe it.
Park also builds character by showing, again through a poignant scene, what Dolour admires. Or, to be more precise, who Dolour admires. The nuns who maintain inner tranquility and order, holding themselves bulwarks against chaos. I love the bit about Dolour and her friends wondering what the nuns take in their small travel valises, which represent the sum total of their worldly possessions. Park uses this as a way to show again, as she shows over and over again, the romantic sensibility of the heroine. In this scene, what Dolour imagines in the sisters' valises is romantic, by contrast to the cynical guesses of her friends.
The crowning glory on this book was the subtle revelation only at the end that it followed The Ugly Duckling story archetype.
This book has already helped me with my work in progress.
In Poor Man's Orange, we start off right in the middle of the family. The style has a slice-of-life feel. And it's subtle. I didn't immediately know who the hero and heroine were for a long time.
Charlie's transformation is so fantastic. I hate these lazily written books where the hero just has a sudden thought that he loves her and so he’ll be totally different now and become the man we want the heroine to marry.
No! Prove it to me. And Park does. How she does!
Charlie’s fall to the bottom is like a bungee jump in slow motion. We get to agonize for pages and chapters about whether that rope is going to be the right length. Or will he slam headfirst into despair and ruin as do so many people in the slum?
The slum, by the way, achieves that to which all writers either aspire or should aspire, an environment so alive, so vibrant in its detailed reality that it rises to the level of a character in its own right.
What Park does, not by standing on a soapbox and waving a finger at us as she lectures us about not judging the poor for being dirty, but by showing us the absolute impossibility of keeping a clean house when you are impoverished. Mumma is burdened and defeated by filth, Roie destroyed by it. Dolour fights it, but of course she cannot defeat it. The most Dolour ever accomplishes is cleaning one small corner. The way Dolour manages to escape the grip of filth cannot be to overcome it because that would defeat the author’s purpose of showing how impossible it is to defeat dirt when you are poor. Park manages to keep Dolour above it, not of it, by having Dolour turn away from it, to show us the unconquerable cleanliness of her spirit. But the inevitability of dirt reigns supreme in this book. The slum never gets cleaner, never improves, never changes, even as it is about to be wrecked.
The leveling planned for the neighborhood is for the benefit of the land owners and developers, not the poor inhabitants. They will all go somewhere even worse, the elderly shunted off to die prematurely from stress as the homes they spent a lifetime in are knocked down in minutes.
The redemption and triumph of the hero is brilliant. Even as Charlie almost falls into the miasma of sin Dolour feels swirls everywhere around her, ready to suck her and anyone who becomes weak into it, the reader sympathizes with him for the reader has lived through his reasons with him.
And then his transformation. Park earns it. At the end -- no -- I'm not really going to tell you the end. But Charlie's transformation, wow. You get it. You can believe it.
Park also builds character by showing, again through a poignant scene, what Dolour admires. Or, to be more precise, who Dolour admires. The nuns who maintain inner tranquility and order, holding themselves bulwarks against chaos. I love the bit about Dolour and her friends wondering what the nuns take in their small travel valises, which represent the sum total of their worldly possessions. Park uses this as a way to show again, as she shows over and over again, the romantic sensibility of the heroine. In this scene, what Dolour imagines in the sisters' valises is romantic, by contrast to the cynical guesses of her friends.
The crowning glory on this book was the subtle revelation only at the end that it followed The Ugly Duckling story archetype.
This book has already helped me with my work in progress.
not-for-me
March 14, 2023See instead the separate books of the series:
*****************************
The Harp in the South Trilogy
*Missus TBR
*The Harp in the South TBR
*Poor Man's Orange TBR
*Swords and Crowns and Rings 2 stars
*****************************
The Harp in the South Trilogy
*Missus TBR
*The Harp in the South TBR
*Poor Man's Orange TBR
*Swords and Crowns and Rings 2 stars
April 1, 2020
I loved and was deeply moved by this book. When I read Harp in the South for our book group, I bought the trilogy but only just now got round to reading this last book of the three.
I had read and taught this novel years ago but so appreciated re-reading it. It is certainly the strongest of the books set in Surry Hills. I think this is because Park sees even more clearly the dirt and despair of slum living while still showing how some people (notably Dolour in this book) struggle to find a better life. Park also recognised that the changes she was fighting for (particularly better housing) were coming at a price for the inner city communities as they were moved either to high rise flats or to outer suburbs. There is a clarity to Park’s vision here that really impressed me. And I still enjoyed all the characters that I’d come to know in Harp in the South. Certainly a book of its times in many ways, in others timeless.
I had read and taught this novel years ago but so appreciated re-reading it. It is certainly the strongest of the books set in Surry Hills. I think this is because Park sees even more clearly the dirt and despair of slum living while still showing how some people (notably Dolour in this book) struggle to find a better life. Park also recognised that the changes she was fighting for (particularly better housing) were coming at a price for the inner city communities as they were moved either to high rise flats or to outer suburbs. There is a clarity to Park’s vision here that really impressed me. And I still enjoyed all the characters that I’d come to know in Harp in the South. Certainly a book of its times in many ways, in others timeless.
April 2, 2016
Excellent. This is a really enjoyable series and Poor Man's Orange is the final part in the trilogy - although it was written second (published 1949) by Ruth Park (she published The Harp in the South in 1948). I chose to read them in the order they were written and I'm happy with this choice (the first part, chronologically speaking, is Missus, but this was actually written over thirty years later, and published in 1985). If like me you were almost totally ignorant about Australian literature I can definitely recommend reading this series! Definitely plan to read more by and about Ruth Park.
April 22, 2020
3.5 ⭐️ The best of the ‘trilogy’. Initially, it felt directionless with each chapter being like an anecdote of the Darcys’ lives, but it began to draw together half way through. There is valuable post-WWii-Sydney content within the story, especially relating to the lives of women at the time. Park also captures grief beautifully.
May 14, 2022
The sequel to Harp in the South, this continues the story of the Darcy family. Ruth Park continues to depict the poverty and tragedy of living in Surry Hills in the late 1940's and early 1950's. But there's always hope, a sense of community and the characters feel like long lost friends. I'm so glad I had a glimpse into the lives of the Darcy family with all their faults and poor choices, but still a genuine love for each other.
During this novel the poor are moved out of their cramped, overcrowded and run-down terraces to the outer suburbs to make way for a high-rise. How times change! Terrace houses are now highly sought after in inner-city Sydney and Surry Hills has gone from a slum to one of the most expensive places to live in the world!
During this novel the poor are moved out of their cramped, overcrowded and run-down terraces to the outer suburbs to make way for a high-rise. How times change! Terrace houses are now highly sought after in inner-city Sydney and Surry Hills has gone from a slum to one of the most expensive places to live in the world!
February 16, 2019
Loved this one. The lives of these characters felt so real.
January 3, 2023
Poor Man’s Orange covers the same themes as The Harp in the South…extreme poverty in Sydney’s post-war slums, adolescence, violent crime, gender roles in a poor working class Catholic family, illness and death. The book is darker though, with more cohesion between chapters, in contrast to THITS which was serialised and published in separate chapters. In some ways it’s almost a rewriting of the first book with similar things happening to Dolour that happened to Roie earlier, but it’s better. The transformation of Dolour from awkward, sick teenager to a grown woman whose integrity and inner (and outer) strength shines like a star in her grim environment is highly satisfying. (Did she have trachoma? I can’t find anything on the internet about it but it seems to fit). Where Roie crumples helplessly, Dolour fights back instinctively. The scene where she shoves the Kidger out of the shop with a mop handle is a beautiful thing. Hughie is a less sympathetic character here as well. In the first book he was a loveable, flawed buffoon, but in this book you just want to kick him for the pain he inflicts on his whole family. In the end it’s clear that the house on 12 1/2 Plymouth Street won’t be around much longer, and the younger members of the family are going to move to the bush. There’s not much optimism there for Mumma and Hughie but I think that Dolour, Charlie and the kids will make it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2025
Yet another book in the series with such a captivating narrative that the characters seem to burst forth from the pages, and the emotions have your stomach dropping, churning or filling with butterflies 🦋
Think Angela's Ashes, but set in the slums of Surry Hills in Sydney.
I read the first of the series, the Harp in the South, before visiting Australia. Since arriving in Australia, I've enjoyed the challenge of tracking down the other books in the series, as well as other books by Park, in charity and second hand book shops here, as unfortunately not many are available online! 🕵️
Think Angela's Ashes, but set in the slums of Surry Hills in Sydney.
I read the first of the series, the Harp in the South, before visiting Australia. Since arriving in Australia, I've enjoyed the challenge of tracking down the other books in the series, as well as other books by Park, in charity and second hand book shops here, as unfortunately not many are available online! 🕵️
September 21, 2018
Poor Man's Orange takes everything that
The Harp in the South
had to offer and puts it through the wringer: more sadness! More marital discord! More conviction of the crabs in the bucket theory!
Shifting the focus to Dolour for this piece was a good idea, but you get the impression that Park did not want to reward her ambition. Dolour isn't exactly punished in this novel, but she certainly cannot catch a break. As such Poor Man's Orange is elegiac in tone, as Park says goodbye to a Surry Hills that was dying out.
The implication is almost that the poor should stay in the countryside where they belong because the city will swallow them whole. If Hughie and Mumma are lost causes, might the rest of the clan come good? We'll never know, because instead of sequelising her first two works, she chose to write Missus instead. It's a missed trick, but at least two thirds of this classic trilogy are worth the reading.
Shifting the focus to Dolour for this piece was a good idea, but you get the impression that Park did not want to reward her ambition. Dolour isn't exactly punished in this novel, but she certainly cannot catch a break. As such Poor Man's Orange is elegiac in tone, as Park says goodbye to a Surry Hills that was dying out.
The implication is almost that the poor should stay in the countryside where they belong because the city will swallow them whole. If Hughie and Mumma are lost causes, might the rest of the clan come good? We'll never know, because instead of sequelising her first two works, she chose to write Missus instead. It's a missed trick, but at least two thirds of this classic trilogy are worth the reading.
February 2, 2020
It’s a grim story. The descriptions are vivid and the themes especially about women are strong.
April 2, 2025
This book provides a very realistic and moving depiction of life in the slums of Sydney during the 40s, as well as being outrageously funny. So many accurate insights on human nature were provided during the sections It provoked many thoughts but the biggest was "Where can I get these oranges? They sound delicious!"
August 25, 2024
Poor Man’s Orange, alongside the other Harp in the South books, is testament to Ruth Park’s singular ability to transcend time and place with her writing.
A gut-wrenching and captivating end to the trilogy (although written as a sequel, long before Missus was published), Poor Man’s Orange portrays late-1940s Surry Hills, rife with poverty and on the verge of being razed to make way for new development.
It was a delight to be transported to this period of modern Australian history through the eyes of the Darcy family. The series is just as charming and enchanting as Parks better known all-ages fiction, but with the brutality and sorrow that was true for many immigrant families living in post-depression Australia.
If you haven’t read any Ruth Park, The Harp in the South trilogy is the perfect place to start.
A gut-wrenching and captivating end to the trilogy (although written as a sequel, long before Missus was published), Poor Man’s Orange portrays late-1940s Surry Hills, rife with poverty and on the verge of being razed to make way for new development.
It was a delight to be transported to this period of modern Australian history through the eyes of the Darcy family. The series is just as charming and enchanting as Parks better known all-ages fiction, but with the brutality and sorrow that was true for many immigrant families living in post-depression Australia.
If you haven’t read any Ruth Park, The Harp in the South trilogy is the perfect place to start.
March 1, 2013
Australia's John Steinbeck, writing intimately about the forlorn lives of Post-Depression Surry Hills slum Sydney. Heartbreaking desolation, drudge and despair, intense characters and narrative, the third of a the Darcy trilogy, perhaps slightly less strong that Harp in the South, an essential read for all Australians.
March 5, 2014
I fell head over heels in love with the Darcy family and with Ruth Park's use of language. Beautifully written.
July 2, 2014
Third of the Harp in the South series. Just loved it
October 14, 2017
(Disclaimer: I am actually reviewing the whole trilogy, so I have copied and pasted this review for all three books)
Having previously only read Ruth Park’s books for children and adults, I decided time was well overdue to get around to her “Harp in the South” trilogy – which had actually begun with “A Harp in the South” before she followed it with “Poor Man’s Orange”, then she wrote the prequel “Missus.” So even though I had read them in order of the family’s story, they were written and published in a different order and I do believe they should actually be read in the publication order (ie start with the second one.) This is because I feel as though things were “revealed” in the prequel that I feel are more powerful when read in retrospect.
I had started reading the book in print (but can’t remember why this got abandoned – I think I had to return the library copy) so I discovered the Bolinda audio versions of all three, and having the same narrator across the three stories was great. I picked up this story pretty much the day after finishing “A Little Life” and I was immediately struck by Park’s economical use of language, her ability to draw very distinct characters and to be able to fit a lot of story within a single chapter.
The books take us into the world of the Sydney slums – which has now sadly disappeared under developments and “improvements.” The characters are warm, distinct and good people in spite of their circumstances. Although they have uncharitable thoughts about people based very much on stereotypes (the religious differences, attitudes to migrants etc) their actions, which are much more important, speak so much more.
It’s hard to really specify why these stories are so important to understanding a large section of Australia’s past – it’s not a perfect trilogy of books by any means, and at times there’s a lot that made me seriously cringe – but despite having a journalist’s ear for recording the daily minutiae of slum life, Park was able to take a step back and show perspective on the microcosm they lived in that goes beyond just a kitchen sink drama. I especially drew a lot out of how second and third generation Australians found their new identities while retaining the habits of the “Old Country” and the ghosts of previous family members.
I think it’s important to read the books without seeing the movies, adaptations or various talks – although these are well worth visiting afterwards – and I see why “Harp in the South” was on so many school syllabuses (although I’d be disappointed if they aren’t today) in spite of being so scandalous when first published. The story of the books and their publication do provide an interesting context to the story Park was trying to tell and the circumstances they came from (basically Park was writing the books from within a setting not too dissimilar to her characters’ lives.) I would like to now explore her memoirs to know more about where these stories came from and how Park interpreted them.
Having previously only read Ruth Park’s books for children and adults, I decided time was well overdue to get around to her “Harp in the South” trilogy – which had actually begun with “A Harp in the South” before she followed it with “Poor Man’s Orange”, then she wrote the prequel “Missus.” So even though I had read them in order of the family’s story, they were written and published in a different order and I do believe they should actually be read in the publication order (ie start with the second one.) This is because I feel as though things were “revealed” in the prequel that I feel are more powerful when read in retrospect.
I had started reading the book in print (but can’t remember why this got abandoned – I think I had to return the library copy) so I discovered the Bolinda audio versions of all three, and having the same narrator across the three stories was great. I picked up this story pretty much the day after finishing “A Little Life” and I was immediately struck by Park’s economical use of language, her ability to draw very distinct characters and to be able to fit a lot of story within a single chapter.
The books take us into the world of the Sydney slums – which has now sadly disappeared under developments and “improvements.” The characters are warm, distinct and good people in spite of their circumstances. Although they have uncharitable thoughts about people based very much on stereotypes (the religious differences, attitudes to migrants etc) their actions, which are much more important, speak so much more.
It’s hard to really specify why these stories are so important to understanding a large section of Australia’s past – it’s not a perfect trilogy of books by any means, and at times there’s a lot that made me seriously cringe – but despite having a journalist’s ear for recording the daily minutiae of slum life, Park was able to take a step back and show perspective on the microcosm they lived in that goes beyond just a kitchen sink drama. I especially drew a lot out of how second and third generation Australians found their new identities while retaining the habits of the “Old Country” and the ghosts of previous family members.
I think it’s important to read the books without seeing the movies, adaptations or various talks – although these are well worth visiting afterwards – and I see why “Harp in the South” was on so many school syllabuses (although I’d be disappointed if they aren’t today) in spite of being so scandalous when first published. The story of the books and their publication do provide an interesting context to the story Park was trying to tell and the circumstances they came from (basically Park was writing the books from within a setting not too dissimilar to her characters’ lives.) I would like to now explore her memoirs to know more about where these stories came from and how Park interpreted them.
March 9, 2019
You always know exactly what you are going to get when you read Ruth Park, and Poor Man's Orange, the sequel to The Harp in the South, is no exception.
Full of charm, pathos, wit and humour, it is story-telling that captivates and warms the hearts of readers.
Poor Man's Orange moves beyond the Depression years and into the 1940s, although the setting remains the inner city slums of Surry Hills, Sydney, and the Irish immigrant family, the Darcys.
Into the slovenly tenement house are crammed the long-suffering Mumma, her unhelpful and drunken husband Hughie, daughter Roie, who is now married to Charlie Rothe, their little girl Moira, known as Motty, and the younger sister of Roie, Dolour.
Next door is still the Chinese grocer, Lick Jimmy, whose grasp of the English language never seems to improve, and the upstairs tenant is Mr Diamond, who dies in the early pages of the novel and is replaced by the mysterious Mr Reilly.
The neighbourhood continues to comprise a whole raft of colourful characters, some good-hearted and honest, some down on their luck and struggling to survive and others that are just no damn good at all.
Life is always tough for the Darcys, but they struggle on, make the best of their lot in life, and generally maintain a positive outlook. Mumma, hard-working and dependable, despite some piques of temper and self-pity, is the backbone of the family unit, someone who would do anything for anybody.
I don't want to include too many spoilers in this review, which is difficult if I write too much about the plot.
Suffice to say, tragedy strikes the family, as one member passes on and another one joins. Others struggle to cope with this loss and the challenges the situation brings, but a deep and abiding love slowly but inexorably emerges from the pain and sorrow, which allows the novel to conclude on a hopeful note.
The delight in Park's writing is her ability to capture the sights, sounds, smells and persistent decay of Surry Hills, where the prospect of renewal is regarded as a threat rather than an opportunity. The locals would prefer to retain what they know rather than have the suburb demolished and modernised.
There are few new characters in this novel - we know most of the key ones from The Harp In the South - but they are full of light and colour, well-drawn and completely fascinating.
they aren't all good -several have severe character flaws - but hey are all big-hearted and full of good intentions.
Ruth park is always a complete pleasure to read.
Full of charm, pathos, wit and humour, it is story-telling that captivates and warms the hearts of readers.
Poor Man's Orange moves beyond the Depression years and into the 1940s, although the setting remains the inner city slums of Surry Hills, Sydney, and the Irish immigrant family, the Darcys.
Into the slovenly tenement house are crammed the long-suffering Mumma, her unhelpful and drunken husband Hughie, daughter Roie, who is now married to Charlie Rothe, their little girl Moira, known as Motty, and the younger sister of Roie, Dolour.
Next door is still the Chinese grocer, Lick Jimmy, whose grasp of the English language never seems to improve, and the upstairs tenant is Mr Diamond, who dies in the early pages of the novel and is replaced by the mysterious Mr Reilly.
The neighbourhood continues to comprise a whole raft of colourful characters, some good-hearted and honest, some down on their luck and struggling to survive and others that are just no damn good at all.
Life is always tough for the Darcys, but they struggle on, make the best of their lot in life, and generally maintain a positive outlook. Mumma, hard-working and dependable, despite some piques of temper and self-pity, is the backbone of the family unit, someone who would do anything for anybody.
I don't want to include too many spoilers in this review, which is difficult if I write too much about the plot.
Suffice to say, tragedy strikes the family, as one member passes on and another one joins. Others struggle to cope with this loss and the challenges the situation brings, but a deep and abiding love slowly but inexorably emerges from the pain and sorrow, which allows the novel to conclude on a hopeful note.
The delight in Park's writing is her ability to capture the sights, sounds, smells and persistent decay of Surry Hills, where the prospect of renewal is regarded as a threat rather than an opportunity. The locals would prefer to retain what they know rather than have the suburb demolished and modernised.
There are few new characters in this novel - we know most of the key ones from The Harp In the South - but they are full of light and colour, well-drawn and completely fascinating.
they aren't all good -several have severe character flaws - but hey are all big-hearted and full of good intentions.
Ruth park is always a complete pleasure to read.
March 25, 2022
The sequel to The Harp in the South carries on the story of the ups and downs (quite a lot of downs actually) of the Darcy family growing up in the poverty stricken suburb of Surry Hills in Sydney in the late1940s.
It’s enjoyable enough, though it didn’t quite hook me as much as the previous book. Be warned it’s very, very long. It was a bit of slog to reach the end, and that affected my rating. It also deals with dark themes including abortion, prostitution, racism and sudden deaths, although it also has lighter moments too.
We hook up again with Mumma, Hugh, Roie and Dolour with the two girls both now older and featuring more heavily this time around.
Roie is married to Charlie, has a young (and borderline feral) daughter Motty. and they live in their parents house while looking for accommodation of their own. This seemed to be a real challenge at the time, with limited housing options and affordability.
Dolour is now a slightly awkward and lacking in confidence teenager, though with a desire to learn and fit in. We get a mix of light-hearted and dark stories of her growing pains.
Like the previous book, it doesn’t really have an overarching story which makes it harder to stick with. It’s more a series of short stories and events that happen to the family. Though these are generally well done, some are stronger than others, so your attention may waver in and out.
There’s a very well-written tragic event early on (which can’t describe without giving a spoiler) that’s particularly gripping and emotional. It does end up bringing two of the characters together right at the end, but it takes a long time for them to get there.
Overall, the characters, the dialogue and the setting including bringing to life what it’s like to live in poverty are generally well done. There’s also some fun, if odd, secondary characters like Mr Reilly who moves into the upstairs room after being invited by a drunken Hugh to move in, and the returning Chinese neighbour Lick Jimmy who moves his whole family in.
On the downside from a pure reading point of view, the author did like long descriptive passages and a lot of inner monologues and having characters pontificate about the world. These sections feel over-written to modern eyes, but may well have been the preferred style of writing at the time.
Worth a read, though recommend reading the previous one first to meet the characters, and also be prepared for that long, drawn out ending.
It’s enjoyable enough, though it didn’t quite hook me as much as the previous book. Be warned it’s very, very long. It was a bit of slog to reach the end, and that affected my rating. It also deals with dark themes including abortion, prostitution, racism and sudden deaths, although it also has lighter moments too.
We hook up again with Mumma, Hugh, Roie and Dolour with the two girls both now older and featuring more heavily this time around.
Roie is married to Charlie, has a young (and borderline feral) daughter Motty. and they live in their parents house while looking for accommodation of their own. This seemed to be a real challenge at the time, with limited housing options and affordability.
Dolour is now a slightly awkward and lacking in confidence teenager, though with a desire to learn and fit in. We get a mix of light-hearted and dark stories of her growing pains.
Like the previous book, it doesn’t really have an overarching story which makes it harder to stick with. It’s more a series of short stories and events that happen to the family. Though these are generally well done, some are stronger than others, so your attention may waver in and out.
There’s a very well-written tragic event early on (which can’t describe without giving a spoiler) that’s particularly gripping and emotional. It does end up bringing two of the characters together right at the end, but it takes a long time for them to get there.
Overall, the characters, the dialogue and the setting including bringing to life what it’s like to live in poverty are generally well done. There’s also some fun, if odd, secondary characters like Mr Reilly who moves into the upstairs room after being invited by a drunken Hugh to move in, and the returning Chinese neighbour Lick Jimmy who moves his whole family in.
On the downside from a pure reading point of view, the author did like long descriptive passages and a lot of inner monologues and having characters pontificate about the world. These sections feel over-written to modern eyes, but may well have been the preferred style of writing at the time.
Worth a read, though recommend reading the previous one first to meet the characters, and also be prepared for that long, drawn out ending.
November 15, 2023
This is the sequel to Harp in The South written in 1949. The Darcy family are floundering along even worse than before, Hughie a drunken slob who gets everything wrong, especially making commitments while drunk, which turn sour. His thinking is egocentric to the point where he simply cannot see what harm he is doing to people. Mumma puts up with him because that is what wives do. Dolour moving from a gawky adolescence to maturity is the single stabilizing figure, maybe Charlie. If I thought Harp was a documentary on life in 40s Surry Hills, Orange seems to illustrate all those things and more that characterized life in the worst slums of Sydney, the story of the Darcy family simply being the framework to make her points: the grim psychology and sociology of Surry hells then (now it is posh), the old laundry copper, the temperamental wood stove, the language and vocabulary of the times, how religion structured people’s thinking, the awful food, the drunkenness on the cheapest alcohol, unthinking spending of what little money people had, just the seeming stupidity of so many people. It’s as if Park thought: “Now I’ve written Harp, what have I left out?” so she throws in the lot, much of it silly, like many of Hughie’s antics, the Christmas pudding, and as a result, events and characters are simply over the top. But there’s also some fine descriptive writing and you can see and feel and smell Surry Hills, and genuine pathos in a crucial death (not saying who). A mixed bag indeed.
July 23, 2025
The Darkest of the lot. Hugh Darcy has no redeeming features in this. We know from the previous two books that he has a good heart but the darkness of his horrible alcoholic affliction and his weakness ruin everything in this book. After all of his horrible habits we now have to add infidelity to his character, and this serves solely to make him irredeemable.
The book would be a complete tragedy if not for Dolour's happy ending. Dolour somehow manages to turn the book into a romance, where really it is a tragic account of life in the Surry Hill slums of Sydney. It's a matter of survive not thrive. It seems the only thing to do given the adversity the Darcy's face is to give up. Yet Dolour fights. And that makes all the difference.
Park's ear for dialogue is matched in my book only by Mark Twain. She writes with a fluidity and feeling that makes her work feel modern even 50 years hence.
The book would be a complete tragedy if not for Dolour's happy ending. Dolour somehow manages to turn the book into a romance, where really it is a tragic account of life in the Surry Hill slums of Sydney. It's a matter of survive not thrive. It seems the only thing to do given the adversity the Darcy's face is to give up. Yet Dolour fights. And that makes all the difference.
Park's ear for dialogue is matched in my book only by Mark Twain. She writes with a fluidity and feeling that makes her work feel modern even 50 years hence.
January 23, 2020
The final book in Ruth Park's trilogy, this novel gives us a real feel for the lives of the working poor. You get the sense that it doesn't really matter what decisions the Darcy family makes, its fate is predetermined, life is either very hard or impossibly hard. The book finishes in my early lifetime and I began to see mentions of things I remembered, such as Hargrave Park, the outer Sydney housing settlement for the poor which was in the news when people were dying from the unsanitary conditions there. The book ends on an optimistic note, but could as easily have ended in the opposite direction. I think the author probably wanted to end on an uptick so as the book was not thought of as a depressing read.
December 8, 2021
I picked up Poor Man's Orange from my local little library. I can't believe how lucky I am. I didn't realise it was part of a trilogy - the last. It stands alone, that's for sure. I will ready Missus, The Harp in the South, and feel proud when I have all three on my bookshelf.
This novel is written so well, it's shocking, it's that good. The language alone is enough to keep a reader interested. A story of poverty, coming of age, deep grief, and generational class struggle. Post second world war, post depression. Immigration - a new hope? Surely, Ireland wasn't so bad?
The slums of Surry Hills, Sydney, are brutal. Of course now Surry Hills is for the rich.....................
This novel is written so well, it's shocking, it's that good. The language alone is enough to keep a reader interested. A story of poverty, coming of age, deep grief, and generational class struggle. Post second world war, post depression. Immigration - a new hope? Surely, Ireland wasn't so bad?
The slums of Surry Hills, Sydney, are brutal. Of course now Surry Hills is for the rich.....................
November 1, 2020
It's an incredible how a book written over 70 years ago can still be so entirely relatable regarding the the strain and awkwardness of growing up, dealing with family, and competing against hordes of others to find decent affordable housing. Like its predecessor, this book went unexpectedly deep and dark, and even the happy endings are bittersweet when viewed against the potential of what could have been and what was lost.
January 26, 2021
I enjoyed this book as much as I did it’s prequel, The Harp in the South.
Following on the lives of Mumma and Hughie Darcy and their two girls, Roie and Dolour, in the inner city slums of Surry Hills the story is insightful to Sydney post World War 2.
The Darcy family live amidst the acute poverty of the times and much is to be learnt about this era in this novel.
A must read for anyone with a love such as I have for learning about inner city Sydney historically.
Following on the lives of Mumma and Hughie Darcy and their two girls, Roie and Dolour, in the inner city slums of Surry Hills the story is insightful to Sydney post World War 2.
The Darcy family live amidst the acute poverty of the times and much is to be learnt about this era in this novel.
A must read for anyone with a love such as I have for learning about inner city Sydney historically.
February 10, 2022
It feels a bit like kicking a puppy to focus on weaknesses throughout, but Park does rather cast central characters off like yesterday's scraps, never returning. Admittedly it keeps the narrative pace humming along, but the gear changes do clash.
Is this the great Sydney novel, or is that The Tree of Man?
Is this the great Sydney novel, or is that The Tree of Man?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews