Rating: *** 3 stars

Rachel Anderson,
The Flight of the Emu.
Hodder, 2002

In her note ‘About the Author’, Anderson describes her family’s unsuccessful attempt to foster a troubled boy from a Children’s Home. She says, poignantly, ‘I wish I could have written him a happy ever after’. The Flight of the Emu is a ‘happy ever after’ story of another Children’s Home boy. Mak, aged about twelve, Welsh-born, mainly English, part-Chinese, was abandoned by his mother and has grown up in a local authority home, with insecurities, behavioural problems and defensive tactics that follow from these beginnings. Then two prospective adoptions erupt into his life.

The first would-be adopter is Evelyn Cairns, an odd, engaging, single, middle-aged Australian, and the best thing in the novel is Mak’s developing relationship with this unexpected person. Then she dies, and Mak is not told. Instead, he is farmed out to an unattractive pair of child-prospectors. So far the texture of Mak’s life is authentically conveyed, and makes uncomfortable reading for any social workers or care staff who may come across the book. But then it transpires that Evelyn has left Mak a lot of money, and from this point on wish-fulfilment takes command of the author and her story. Mak’s ‘happy ever after’ is a large inheritance in trust at home, and a new life in beautiful, hot, multiracial Sydney. His fortunes change beyond belief. Literally.

Peter Hollindale