The sweep of Australia's history can give us so many wonderful stories.  While Edward Britton is fictional, it is based firmly in the horrors of the Convict era, and is brought to life vividly by leading novelist Gary Crew and poet Philip Neilsen. In a decidedly Dickensian melodrama they mix young love, desperate revenge, oppression, escape and redemption with a cast of memorable characters just crying out for a TV adaptation.

The dramatic story is set at Point Puer, the boys' prison at Port Arthur and tells of two very different convicts.  Edward Britton is 17 years old, good-looking, literate and well educated.  He had been a Shakespearean child actor in London but was transported for allegedly stealing from his acting troupe.

Izod Wolfe is dark, brooding and the last survivor of a family mercilessly evicted from their Irish farm.  He is driven by a dream of revenge against Lieutenant Buckridge, now the brutal commander of Point Puer, but once his family's tormentor from Ireland.

How each deals with the violence and misery around them is the core of the story.  While the two interact with each other, and the reader soon feels sympathy for both, really their tales are separate and contrasting.

Edward seems favoured by Fate.  His education gets him out of the brutal hard labour the others must endure, he is able to start producing a play for the officials, and the commander's daughter falls in love with him.  Izod, however, takes on the worst jobs, laying out the dead bodies, cleaning the pigs, to bide his time until he can take his revenge.

But gradually the two boys' stories come together until the same fateful event decides their separate ends.

The whole mood of Edward Britton is certainly reminiscent of Charles Dickens, with extreme characters, clear cut good and evil (though not in expected places), life and death and melodramatic endings.  Gary Crew's eye for the mysterious and dark, sombre atmospheres is very evident, while Neilsen's poetic voice gives the language a richness that cries to be read out loud.

Together, they have created a tale that is haunting and tragic but which shows how strength can be found when it is needed.

Other books by this author:
The Grandstand (Lothian, 1999)

Review by David Beagley

© 2000 David Beagley