Whipbird

by Robert Drewe

Kungadgee, Victoria, Australia. A weekend in late November, 2014. At Hugh and Christine Cleary's new vineyard, Whipbird, six generations of the Cleary family are coming together from far and wide to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the arrival of their ancestor Conor Cleary from Ireland. Hugh has been meticulously planning the event for months - a chance to proudly showcase Whipbird to the extended clan. Some of these family members know each other; some don't. As the wine flows, it promises to be an eventful couple of days. Comic, topical, honest, sharply intelligent, and, above all, sympathetic, Robert Drewe's exhilarating new novel tells a classic Australian family saga as it has never been told before.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Australia, Family, Book Club, Literature

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2017

About the author

Robert Drewe is among Australia’s most loved writers – of novels, memoir and short stories. His iconic Australian books include The Shark Net, The Bodysurfers and Our Sunshine. He is also editor of Black Inc.’s Best Australian Stories annual series. Recently, he has revisited the short story himself, with a masterful new collection, The Rip. Jo Case spoke to him for Readings about storytelling.

Reviews

[Rosemary Atwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really? A promising premise that quickly dwindles after the first hundred pages, finally ending in a spiral of B-grade scenarios that test the patience of the most faithful Robert Drewe fan. How many characters (cliched and unlovable at that) must we meet before the action happens? Unhappily, far too many.

In the 1980s, Drewe's work was compulsively readable - and never bettered than in his short-story collection 'The Bodysurfers.' 'Whipbird' is nothing short of unforgivable - self-indulgent, sloppy and with page after page of anecdotes and rants that contribute little to the novel's overall purpose and cohesion. I can't bear to think that this is Drewe's new style, especially as there are enough plot lines in here to fuel at least a dozen novels - and if they're all as embarrassingly cringeworthy as this one, forget it.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

On the 160th anniversary of Connor Cleary's arrival in Australia, the family holds a reunion and celebration weekend at Hugh Cleary's newest aquisition; his vineyard, Whipbird. The book is a series of vignettes of the lives of various family members written from their own point of view. There are many branches of the family and many characters, few of whom I found likeable or interesting.

While books that are character based rather than plot driven can be engaging, the characters are not developed enough beyong the character or the stereotype to really carry the story. By page 71 I was asking "When will something happen?" and by page 213 I decided that I was not willing to read the last third of the book in hopes that there would be a twist to redeem it.

Many of the characters found the weekend at Whipbird disappointing and so did I.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much happens until the end of the story, when it all becomes somewhat farcical. A group of fairly unlikeable people, loosely related, spouting platitudes and covering every current topic of conversation. Is anything not covered in their belligerent, drunken 'conversations'? The list includes lawyers, banks, urban sprawl, religion, private school education, Afghanistan, refugees, Muslims etc, etc.

As for the channeling of the original ancestor, whose fault all this is..... that struck me as ridiculous.

Rereading what I have written here, I'm actually wondering why I gave this 3 stars.

With a couple of exceptions, I am not a great fan of Robert Drewe's writing; he is nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is.

[Ann Tonks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. There are elements of Drewe's work which are so good - instantly recognisable characters; great insight into the nature of Australian society; an array of interesting people.....but the structure just didn't work for me. Flitting from one character to the next, from one witty story to the next - not enough to keep me going. So I flicked to the end, read the last couple of chapters and thought "wouldn't this make a great mini-series". But not a great novel.

[Betty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robert Drewe writes beautiful prose, but he is no novelist. This novel is set around a family get together, and each chapter focuses on a different character. I couldn't care less about any of them. The plot is minimal, and with so many characters, there is no character development. Had to skim the second half, there are too many other great books to read to spend any more time on this one.

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found Whipbird boring and struggled to finish it

[Rosalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Drewe has created a funny typically Australian novel involving a family reunion that takes place over one weekend at a family vineyard. The Cleary clan members, who responded to an advertisement, are descendants of one Conor Cleary who arrived in Australia 160 years before the reunion. The Cleary Clan typifies many Australian families who have been here for five or six generations and are a blend of many different ethnic backgrounds and religions. The huge weekend gathering and loose group discussions allow the author to tease out differences and to let the family discuss, rant, eulogise their family foibles, reminiscence about their pasts, and analyse Australian history. It is also an ideal platform to make fun of contemporary Australian society.
He humorously criticises Australian society as his different characters “voice” their opinions. Thus, we have the “ballet parents” who sit in their cars weekly for years until their daughter drops out suddenly and becomes a goth. Tattoos are now popular for all age groups but are not good on old women’s bat wings, and the men who work out and get man boobs, then he has a go at migrants, Muslims, and ethnic football players, banks and the ridiculous overzealous rules in Occupational Health and Safety. He uses the Eureka Stockade to tie in with his ancestor but also as an example of Australian History that in general is taught so superficially at school. This idea is reinforced by Thea who finds Australian history boring and has trouble describing Australia to a colleague overseas whilst deliberately ignoring Aborigines because it is too difficult to explain.
An amusing good light read

[John Kidman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved nearly everything about this book. It is my first Robert Drewe. I laughed out loud over many of the incidents. A real 'take the Mickey out of families'. The notion of a family reunion and links with the Eureka Stockade really worked for me. I loved the names of the characters and the changing nature of 'Aussie' families. Our multi-culturalism. Loved the Tshirts and the Richmond Football Club connections. Loved the Vegan v Carnivore debates, young v old, the lost painting, up yours, pseudo characters, and particularly the historical, and hysterical antics along the way, e.g. the State Savings Bank of Victoria.

There was nothing I didn’t like about this book. I didn’t give it 5 because I thought it petered out a bit in the last few chapters. I think Book endings are the hardest part for authors to write and I’m often disappointed in this regard. Fabulous book for discussion groups.

[Catherine Davison · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was much which made me smile and laugh in this book. The whole Irish Catholic family get together BBQ, I smiled too at the references to places of my own childhood, the Bentleigh State Savings Bank and the church hall where I used to rehearse for all those school musicals. However there was something lacking, it is a book where the parts are greater than the sum if I might reverse the usual saying. Lots of insightful comments about Australian society and changes in banking, lots of spot on depictions of recognisable Aussie characters but nothing much else. I kept waiting for the narrative arc to appear, the set up was so prolonged and by the end I was over it and felt the ending did not do justice to the work Drewe had put in in the first two thirds of the book. I'd recommend it for a fun, lighthearted read but I was expecting more.

[Sharon Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Shark Net, and Grace - I felt they captured the Australian spirit, character & experience perfectly without parody and with honesty.

Whipbird at times showed glimpses of this brilliance but mostly it was a loose collection of information about characters who didn't develop and with whom I really didn't connect. I was disappointed. The twist was not enough of a hook to drive the plot and the "return" of a character was inexplicable.

Not a page turner but a simple reasonably entertaining book.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is skilfully written but not much happens. I felt it kind of rush to the ending.

[Lesley Moseley · Rating 3 out of 5]

So superbly written, the boring characters are well recognizable, but to me, not interesting. Very much real life , but cliched. So many contemporary tropes are dragged out, and far too many L O N G backstories. Heartbreaking as Robert Drewe has been a favourite author for decades especially The Drowner, which I've read 3 times. Such a shame as he is to be a guest speaker at our Cairns Tropical Writers Festival, 10-12 th August, and I was looking forward to that. However now I feel like I shouldn't attend his workshop.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

OMG, I think I married Mick Cleary, or Robert Drewe has been spying on my husband - especially the comment on shoes without socks!
This is an entertaining and satisfying read, apart from the family story, it is also a social commentary covering so many aspects of life today which everyone will be able to recognise.
A nice twist and a good ending. Unlike some of the reviewers I have read, I like the huge and varied cast of characters and thought the addition of a "spirit" inhabiting the walking dead and narrating his past was a clever idea.

[Alistair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quintessentially Australian novel laced with liberal doses of dry laconic humour, and outright funny accounts of the foibles of the descendants of Conor Cleary. Gathering Conor's descendants for a weekend get-together at Hugh's new vineyard 'Whipbird', everything that can go awry probably will. Many generations congregate, few exhibiting any inherited characteristics from the five foot five inch wiry ranga from Ireland, which prompts the patriarch of the family, Mick, (never Michael), to wonder where the values he holds dear have gone.
Author Drewe has much fun in pricking the pomposities and other jumped-up attitudes from his splendidly wacky cast.
A joy to read.

[Ita · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story in the beginning, but there are just too many characters and not much happens until right at the end.

[Mark Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new book by Robert Drewe is always something to savour and Whip Bird is a tour de force! Its a funny, satirical, sad, tragic and biting look at modern Australia and the best thing I've read in a long time. Highly recommended.

[Margaret Jeffery · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goodbye Robert Drewe. I thought that after the disappointment of Grace we might be reconciled with Whipbird but no, you've let me down again. I felt the book lacked light and shade and the characters were formulaic but it was when I realised that you'd recycled anecdotes from your newspaper column I knew we were done.

[Neil Dufty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing from Drewe - too many characters with little depth, plot takes a long while to unfold

[Sarah Johnston · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only reason I finished this book is because I thought that perhaps I would discover the point of it. I don't like to quit a book but should have put this one aside.

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel covers a weekend when the Cleary family gather at Whipbird, Hugh Cleary's newly developed vineyard near Ballarat. They are celebrating the 160th anniversary of their ancestor Conor Clearly's arrival in Australia part of the British army. They come from all over Australia and as the family has grown their fortunes have varied.

The focus is on barrister Hugh's family. Hugh is reeling after not being appointed a QC, something the gathering was also meant to celebrate. Not all members of his family are pleased to be dragged away from their regular lives in Brighton to meet the widely assorted cousins at the reunion. His son Liam sneaks home to a party. Christine, Hugh's wife, seems to be hiding something. There is a mysterious young guest, who seems to belong to none of the branches of the family. Cousin Sly a rocker past his prime believes he is dead due to Cotard's syndrome. The spirit of Conor Cleary himself fills the void in Sly's being and commentates on his life and descendants. And there is more...

Drewe covers a lot of ground in terms of characters, events and history in the course of this novel and, whilst he manages to keep them all clear, sometimes it feels like a bit of a race through all branches of Australian society. Whilst the size and breadth of the gathering are clearly meant to demonstrate the variety of Australian society in the intervening years, some characters, such as Hugh's teenage daughters, are sketchy and cliched. The meeting by the bonfire, where the Hugh the descendant of a British soldier commemorates the anniversary of the Eureka Stockade with a group celebrating the miners and their rebellion, feels clunky. Despite this, I enjoyed the story and the sly eye Drewe casts on Australian middle class mores.

[Steph Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Drewe played a big part into my move from 'young adult' to 'adult' literature, with The Drowner serving as my first favourite 'real' novel. As a result I look forward to everyone novel released by Drewe, though with some hesitation in this case. A family reunion set on an Australian vineyard? Sounds like a cliche 'family drama'. Then a few chapter in we find out that their long dead ancestor has found his way into the brain of Sly, the former rockstar who now thinks he is indeed dead himself (known as Cotard's syndrome) and I thought this would be more interesting than cliche.

Of course there are plenty of cliche moments, in particular the family secret that is revealed, and the shared brain plays a lesser role than I expected in would. But most of the book does not concern the reunion, but instead goes into little vignettes from the various family members lives. In some ways, it feels more like a collection of related short stories than a novel, with plenty of interesting details that make it feel very real for an Australian today, though I found it hard to relate to anyone who could support Richmond! Indeed, readers will notice plenty of topics from his newspaper columns, such as the silly kids names of today.

Overall an entertaining and humorous read despite the lack of plot (and the cliche of what plot there is), 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because I really like Drewe's writing style. Anyone who enjoys his columns should enjoy this one.

[Bronwyn Mcloughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could picture it perfectly - in the dust of an Australian wine town, smoke and dust mingling drowsily, gumtrees lazily above, stunning new home, architecturally designed, proud owner in unblemished R M Williams, using the family reunion as an opportunity to showcase his achievements ...... no gentle chiding here; in your face unloveliness across the board, critiquing so much of modern society with glee. And the caricatures stick - some are more developed than others, more nuanced than others, some more memorable. There isn't much plot development, but perhaps that's the point. The family reunion provides the scaffold to hang the back stories on, to display the satirical contemplations of Australian hypocrisy, sacred cows and the chip on our shoulder. The folklore that has informed Australia's popular sense of self is here debunked - the ancestor these people hold in common was certainly Irish, but fought for the British, no shame in that when you need to earn a living - but it does mean he slaughtered Maori and fought against the miners at Eureka. And maybe that's the point in these days of family history dominating our sense of self. The past is not always the myth we'd like it to be. Grandiose acts have a way of backfiring.

I enjoyed parts of it - some stories really resonated, other parts were very clunky, and didn't hang together well at all. I confess to expecting something more extraordinary, but I'm not sure what that would have looked like.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel that will be especially enjoyed by Australians, (of which I am one) as although there are satirical aspects to it pertinent to modern society in general, it is essentially about the Australian psyche and how its convict history has contributed to it.

The gathering of the clan at a barbecue enables Drewe to make each character representative of certain 'type', exhibiting certain attitudes and behaviour, yet also ensuring the characters are real and convincing. In less capable hands, the unusual device of having the ancestor Conor Cleary inhabit the body of one of his descendants, would not have worked, but due to the author's skill it becomes an interesting and imaginative way of flashing back to the convict era and it is absorbed seamlessly into the narrative.

Each chapter becomes a vignette of a different character and as I was reading I was impatient for the action to begin. It happens spectacularly near the end and is worth waiting for, with the consequences left for the reader to imagine.

[Meredith Jaffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

For over forty years, Robert Drewe has been dazzling readers with his fiction, non fiction, memoir and essays. It's been a long time between reads since we've seen fiction from Drewe but its been well worth the wait.

Whipbird is the name of the property recently purchased by barrister Hugh Cleary. He's been worded up that this weekend, he will, at last become a QC (or SC as it is now) and the timing could not be better, for the entire Cleary clan is descending on Whipbird in a celebration of the 160th anniversary of the arrival of their forefather Conor Cleary.

In this delicious satire, Drewe masterfully juggles a cast of characters, all fighting for the low ground, it has to be said! Drewe casts a wide net and there were times in the reading that I wondered where he was taking me. Of course, the net closes in the end and caught within it is the startling revelations and inevitable consequences of hubris, family rivalry and way too much alcohol.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminded me of a big, messy ball of wool.
The winding plot lines of the many (many!) characters are pulled together here and there by roughly tangled knots.

The messy, people-driven plot strings of “Whipbird” are tangential, at times outlandish or cliche, but interesting. I quite enjoyed travelling down the various rabbit holes, and each character’s backstory was like it’s own short story with enough contained within to hold me. I enjoyed the quirky differences of the various folks - but I couldn’t quite sink my teeth into any of them for long enough to take a full bite, and most if not all of the characters are decidedly unlikable.

Overall, I found the novel satisfying to read. I really enjoy Drewe’s writing style - and call me crazy but there was a perverse kind of pleasure to watching it all ‘unravel’ for characters I enjoyed observing but didn’t feel emotionally invested in.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disparate group of characters meet at a family reunion organised by Hugh Cleary on his newly developed vineyard, Whipbird, to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the arrival of their ancestor, Conor Cleary. We get to know a few of these characters in depth, but most appear only as stereotypes, middle aged men arguing over football and beer, older women with 'blonded hair' and vicious tongues and the disaffected younger generation who'd rather be somewhere else. A mysterious young guest, who seems to belong to none of the branches of the family wanders through the weekend stirring up trouble. Most disconcerting is Hugh's cousin Sly, a drug addled rocker who believes he is dead due to Cotard's syndrome, who seems to be possessed by Conor's spirit. In all a strange and rather unsatisfying novel.

[Lily Mulholland · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment. Billed as ‘acute and hilarious’, I expected so much more from this wafer-thin story in which we learn nothing new about the human condition.

I come from a large, extended family of early 19th Century Irish migrants who settled in Melbourne so thought I would find a lot to relate to in Drewe’s exploration of how one man can spawn hundreds of offspring over only a few generations. My family too has been on an upward class journey from blue collar to white and we have as many ridiculous happenings as any large family so I expected to be highly entertained by this novel. I barely managed a chuckle.

Drewe missed a real opportunity here. Too many indistinguishable characters, too much head-hopping and a farcical ending that left us nowhere. Not a patch on his earlier work.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this and managed to have few good laughs along the way. A gathering of descendants of an early Irish immigrant to Australia gather on a vineyard owned by one of them near Ballarat to celebrate 160 years of the family in this country. A mixed bunch including a barrister, a priest, a doctor, some bank employees, a wildlife consultant, an aging rock singer, a young man in black whom nobody knows, lots of elderly rellos and plenty of noisy kids. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty actually. My only quibble is the device of putting the spirit of the original settler into the body of a silent mentally ill descendant. Other than that, it is a bit like an Irish-Australian version of The Slap, with lots of current social and political arguments arising amongst the group.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite sure how I feel about this book.
A lot of the time it felt quite bitsy to me. In a few sections it rolled along nicely...but became bitsy again.
So I guess I am slightly disappointed with this one from him.

Actually....when the long dead voice of Conor Cleary started channeling through the near dead Sly.......I fair dinkum rolled my eyes. I’m sorry...but Markus Zusak has won the prize for impact in The Book Thief. Slightly different, I know....but there is no point being a poor second.

Overall...very readable and worth reading. Good social and family observations. Just not as good as his memoirs.

[Felicity J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Drewe writes about contemporary Australia - our attitudes, our language, our aspirations. The stories about his characters in this book left me wanting more. However, I sense that he finds women a profound mystery and his female characters are recognisable but are somehow black and white, archetypical.

My favourite character was Mick, the retired bank manager retrenched in the 1990s in his late 50s, but I think that was because Drewe put the most effort and empathy into him. An enjoyable book. (Thanks to David for lending it to me!)