I chose M. L. Stedman’s newest novel, A Far-Flung Life, based on the cover and the title. Something about the isolation of that windmill, silhouetted against the stars drew me in, as did the term “far-flung.” What kind of life could be described like that, I wondered.
I knew nothing else about this book, had read no blurbs or promotional information prior to clicking play on my audio file, but as the narrator began to relate the tale in his sonorous Australian accent I was hooked.
The scope of this novel is as vast as the landscape. The McBrides, owners of a million-acre sheep station called Meredith Downs, are a prominent Western Australia family working to maintain the family homestead in increasingly uncertain wool markets. In many ways, the difficulties and demands of station life are easy to relate to, especially to readers who have had to struggle to make their way. And like many people, the McBrides suffer a terrible tragedy, which the matriarch, Lorna McBride, must find the strength to cope with.
Anyone who has ever felt unmoored from a centering point in life or who has endured personal tragedy can understand the feeling of being far-flung. But Lorna McBride loses everything that tethers her to her once stable and secure life. If she had only found solace in her only daughter, Rose. Instead, Lorna McBride’s fatal error is not loving and trusting Rose enough. And from that failure flows a waterfall of tragedy upon tragedy.
Midway, I began to question how a child born under a dark star would navigate a life constrained by unspeakable secrets. Young Andy is a bit like Monty McBride’s pearling lugger that sits in a shed miles inland, awaiting a possible return to the sea. Andy’s life seems unlikely to thrive. But I had hope that he would emerge whole and well. There is urgency for Matthew McBride as well, for he is, in his own way, another ill-fated innocent.
If I had just one criticism, it would be that the novel was a bit too long, but because life does not resolve anguish overnight, Stedman allows life to unfold, and we feel the weight of time as the characters feel it. In the end, I realized the scope of the novel was purposeful and effective. In the same way, as new characters and storylines are introduced, I wondered if they were necessary, but then I realized that tangential characters are never there for scenery or texture only. From the roo shooter to the town gossip, each person has an important role to play, an intricate thread in the broad saga.
In the same way that Hemingway wants us to feel Santiago’s anguish by taking us out to sea with the old man, urging us to feel each cut of the line, making us witness each bite of the shark tearing away the old man’s dream, Stedman obliges us to live each tick of the McBride family’s grandfather clock, and time becomes an instrument of empathy.
I won’t soon forget this story or its lessons of endurance and forgiveness.