Summary: Roses were rarely seen at the old Jerusalem hotel.
Life is hard, and for some of the tenants a luxury might be warm feet, cat's meat stew or a five-bob coat from a jumble sale.
In A Power of Roses, Ruth Park draws vivid portraits of Miriam, the tough adolescent heroine; her Uncle Puss, a canny old Irishman; and a colourful assortment of inhabitants who live in the hotel's damp, rat-infested rooms.
MY THOUGHTS:
This story begins so bleakly, I almost talked myself into abandoning it after the first few chapters. But I ended up loving it. So much so that on the strength of reading it, I've just ordered another batch of Ruth Park's vintage novels.
It tells a story about the riff-raff residents of the dilapidated Jerusalem apartments in the heart of Sydney. These folk each do their best to stay dignified when just trying to stay adequately fed and clothed is incredibly difficult and demoralizing. It begins with young Miriam McKillop buying 'backbones for me cat,' because she and her uncle can't afford higher quality fish. However, the collection of tails, fins, and fish heads is destined to flavor their own stew.
These two are the heart of the story; Irish migrant Uncle Puss McKillop (whose real name is Percival or 'Perce') and canny young Miriam, the great niece he has brought up, who can love with great ferocity.
Not only does Ruth Park weave us right into the picture with her world-building, but she does it in an intriguing metaphysical way. She entices us readers with the probability of a deeper, invisible plane of existence which infuses the more lovable characters with optimism and hope. For example, 'Miriam was aware of a fairy world, hanging heavenlike behind the accidents of this life', and hence so are we.
To mention a few other colorful characters their story entwines with, there is young Dunkie, a handsome and opinionated boy who can't walk, and whose self-focus naturally reflects his narrow physical outlook. There is the desperately devout Mr Creepin' Christmas, who runs the fish n' chip shop, and Mr Holland, the shy young minister whose job feels way out of his depth.
At one stage, the community is rocked by the healing ministry of the Reverend Doctor Maisley, who operates his outreach in a similar style to the Duke and the King from Huckleberry Finn. And I'll keep secret the identity of one of my favorite characters who ushers in change with great panache.
There is a lad named Porgy Ketchel whose fondest dream is to someday work on a garbage truck, which he fears is out of his league. The most menacing presence in the book is Porgy's father, Cheap Billy Ketchel, a vicious and resentful bully who keeps rehearsing his litany of injustices. I'd challenge any reader to come up with a single redeeming feature for this bloke.
Looking back over the plot, it seems to me that Park uses some form of literary natural selection to weed out the more malevolent and negative influences from the Jerusalem, so that only the benign, loving, and harmless remain. And brace yourselves for a perfectly planned and executed revenge mission with a real Australian bite. It probably couldn't be done now, with our high-tech surveillance tools, but one character quietly does many others a colossal favor.
The author blurb in this old edition reveals that Ruth Park, along with her husband, D'Arcy Niland, was forced to live in a Sydney slum tenement for a while, owing to the shortage of adequate housing following World War Two. Aha, no wonder her descriptions bear such a compassionate insider's touch. Park's writing is alchemical, spinning gold from straw.
The ending brims with heartbreaking closures and exciting new beginnings. As for the title, we are rewarded by learning why 'a power of roses' is Uncle Puss's whole life philosophy all condensed into four words.
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