The Orchard Thieves

In The Orchard Thieves, Elizabeth Jolley employs an interesting (and at first disconcerting) device by naming her characters only in terms of their relationships to one another. She also sketches vague details regarding setting, placing further emphasis on her themes of family discord and, particularly, the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship.

In the grandmother of the clan, Jolley creates a nuanced narrator whose vivid imaginings of imminent catastrophe add pleasing touches of dry humour to the fable. Yet, as in life, it is not until real disaster strikes the family that each character's true colours are revealed.

The Orchard Thieves is a small but satisfying slice of Australian life.

An excellent short novel focusing on family life, specifically the relationships between mothers and daughters. The story is written from a grandmother’s perspective. She has three daughters and several grandchildren.

The grandmother lives with her eldest, unmarried daughter. Their domestic calm disintegrates when the ‘middle daughter’ arrives and urges the sale of the family house.

One of the unusual devices is that none of the characters have names; they are referred to only by their position in the family. In one sense this is unwelcome as it keeps the reader at a distance and lessens identification with the characters. However it also makes sense because the essence of the novel is this: it is via the changes in the family show more role that understanding of other family members develops. As daughters become mothers themselves they gain a new perspective on their own mother’s achievements, or otherwise.

The novel is a rumination on what it is to be a mother and a grandmother and as always with Jolley, family life is presented as complex and multilayered. It includes plenty of love, loyalty, strength, and tolerance, but anxieties are ever present (the grandmother has wildly active imagination), and destructive and selfish forces inevitably bubble to the surface. When the crisis takes place at the end of The Orchard Thieves it brings pain, but it also brings release, relief and growth.

This novel is not strong on plot or even character, but it examines the complexities of family relationships with great honesty and insight. Jolley explores the emotional landscape of family life without flinching. While her perspective is sometimes a little bleak, she writes with a wonderful wry humour. Mostly it is dark, but at times it is laugh out loud. For example, soon after the middle daughter’s arrival from England a letter arrives for the daughter from her lesbian partner. As the grandmother picks it up she sees this message scrawled on the back of the envelope in black felt pen ‘So sorry I’m late with this letter, I misjudged the length of an orgasm and missed the post.’ show less

This is a short book which deals with the dynamics within families. In this particular family, there is the widowed grandmother who lives in the family home with her eldest unmarried daughter (the aunt). She loves the company but worries about her daughters happiness. She also delights in the visits from her youngest daughter's (the wife's) 2 boys although she finds their father a bit domineering. She worries about her youngest daughter's happiness. The arrival of the unmarried middle daughter from overseas, with a small daughter and another nearly due tests the resilience of the family. This daughter is lazy, demanding and scheming but " the grandmother..., knew that, as the middle sister's mother, she could not and would not send her show more away. Where could anyone go in their life if not back, if the need arose, to their own mother, and to that place which was called home with all that a person, having been given life, deserves to have; the safety and the comfort and the love? Who could turn away a son or a daughter? The child is always the child of the mother". And it is this love that saves the middle daughter and places the family back on its steady path.

Because the family members are never named, this could be any family.
I do enjoy Elizabeth Jolley's writing. show less