The Mango Tree

by Ronald McKie

The Mango Tree is an evocative journey into a long-lost Australian childhood. It is a novel about a young man growing up in a country town in the early years of the 20th century which, like a faded letter from a forgotten lover, evokes bitter-sweet memories of the dream-days of youth in a world long past.
As we follow Jamie through the joys and pains of growing up, a magic quality in the writing unlocks our own memories of childhood and adolescence so that we share with him again the delights of Christmas in the country, the sounds of the circus, the scent of horses, the tender fumblings of first love, the shock of sudden death. This magical tour takes us through the town from Comino's Café to the Royal hotel, from the great mango tree of the title to the quiet river with its island of petrified gum-trees. We meet Grandmother in her grey dress, stern but kindly; the Professor, a remittance man who drinks to escape a nameless past but who still has his moments of glory; poor, fated Maudie, the 'town bike', and her demonic guardian, Preacher Jones, ranting hell-fire and damnation to a terrible end; these and many more. A nostalgic book full of laughter and tears, to be swallowed at a sitting, or savoured slowly with delight. A tender, lyrical book.

Genres: 20th Century, Fiction, Australia, Historical Fiction, Novels, Literature

211 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Ronald Cecil Hamlyn McKie was a fifth generation Austrlian. He was educated at the Brisbane Grammar School and the University of Queensland, and then worked as a journalist on newspapers in Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore and China. In WW2 he served in the AIF and as a war correspondent with the British in Burma, and with British/US armies in Italy, reporting on the Potsdam Conference in Berlin and the trial of Vidkum Quisling in Norway at the end of the war. In 1952 he was the first Australian journalist to receive a Smith-Mundt Fellowship from the US State Department and spent six months in the US.
His first novel The Mango Tree won the Miles Franklin award in 1974. His other books include best-welling war documentaries Proud Echo and The Heroes, and his political and social books include This was Singapore, Malaysia in Focus, The Company of Animals Bali, and Singapore.

Reviews

[zed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bildungsroman is seemingly an attractive genre to me. I have read 4 in recent times and have found them all enjoyable. Maybe the maturity of the authors allows them to recall their youthful memories and write words that allow the bigger world of the past to shine through with nostalgia.

This book, The Mango Tree, is mostly a year in the life of a 16/17 year old Jamie who may be the author Ronald McKie. McKie is another author that has seemed to pass Australia by as I found this 1974 winner of the Miles Franklin Award hard to find and I see few reviews on Goodreads. Unfortunate really as it is a rather good book.

Set in the final year of the Great War in an unnamed central Qld sugar town there is some beautiful writing that gives a sense of the author’s youthful awareness of his own wonderment at a grown up world and with that his change from a youngster to an adult. Jamie is raised by a wise Grandmother after the death of parents he never knew. His Grandmother always encourages Jamie who has more than a passing interest in what seems to be a multi-cultural experience be that small Chinese community of the town through to the low-key sectarianism that abounded in Australia until recent times. For a war going on in Europe at the times the German descent community was remarkably integrated in the eyes of a young Jamie. Indigenous culture is covered though that is more spiritual than physical as the absence of any Aboriginal characters in the book is striking.
For me the final chapters were as poignant as I have read. The pandemic is hitting the community hard and Jamie and his family are caught in the attempts to stem the tide of the dreadful deaths of the old and especially the young. Leavings are the final theme.


Recommended to anyone with an interest in Australian Literature.

[Amanda Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow moving novel, very descriptive sentences, and regularly returning to the mango tree where the main boy character who grows up through the book, sees people and events of the town that change it forever.

[Keir · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried and failed to read this in high school 30 years ago, so I decided to give it a second chance. It starts off slowly and with much descriptive prose and focus on character, particularly of Jamie, the centre of the novel. It is very clear from the beginning that we're going to be taking our time getting to an actual plot. That's fine, if you're in the mood for that, and I was.

But this continues for the entire first half of the book until we're suddenly thrown into a plot that involves entirely new characters not encountered until that point, with Jamie relegated to the sidelines as a spectator, or not involved at all. It got more and more ludicrous for almost 50 pages (in my 210 page edition!) until we were suddenly back to square one, enjoying plotless metaphorical descriptions and life from the perspective of Jamie.

Much like a relationship, the quirks of McKie's writing go from pleasing at the start to outright annoying. He simply cannot let an opportunity pass for metaphor or florid description, sometimes twice in the same sentence. It is also sometimes confusing trying to understand if an event being referred to is from the present, i.e. happening now, or is something from the past.

I struggled to finish the last 40 pages. Interestingly, it was only in that last 40 pages that the supposedly key events referred to on the back cover actually occurred. I don't think I'll be revisiting this one. It is strangely unsatisfying and frustrating.

[Bec D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Don’t read it if you love plots because there isn’t one. Read it if you love beautiful language and word craft, stories about the past, and themes about growing up, community and family, (and community as family) identity and place. When I was a kid, my childhood home had a mango tree in its yard. McKie uses the mango tree so effectively that I re-connected with my childhood experiences. He is such a beautiful, beautuful writer. It may be a small book about a time and place, but so wonderfully, wonderfully done. My only criticism is that I think the ending could have been rendered better if it had more thematic.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading my way through the Miles Franklin Awards winners. This one was first published in 1974. Its a simple story about a young boy who lives with his grandmother in the early 1900s in a remote Queensland town. The story follows Jamies' growth through his teenage years: the challenges, the adventures, the first love, the relationships with so many colourful characters. There is no plot to the story, it is almost a diary of Jamies' life. Its not riveting but is creatively written. I can see why it won the MFA.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply loved this book. Set in an old coal mining town in North Queensland -- by the cane fields and the Coral Sea -- at the end of the First World War, the book tells the story of Jamie, a boy in the last days of adolescence and the people the shape the next phase of his life. Chief among these are Grandma and the Professor, a pair, who despite their great differences, share a common disdain for living by society's rules.

[Islai · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4/5

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Australian classic, somewhat neglected. A Bildungsroman.