The Mango Tree

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.