Is Ethel Webb Bundell WA’s Joanna Trollope? Well, no. But it is good to have a West Australian novelist writing about the Anglican Church in WA creating engaging and believable characters in an intelligent and witty story.

The main character in God-Boxes of Halliday’s Reef is a newly-ordained woman priest, Ros, who arrives in a small seaside town to be their resident priest and assistant to the Rector of the larger neighbouring parish. The story plots the reaction of the town – the young surfers, the clergy of other denominations, the strange and failed seminarian, and her own congregation. The novel opens with Ros performing the funeral of her own husband. Within a few days her mother also dies and her Rector suffers a heart attack.

The novel shows Ros coping with her grief as a family member and colleague at the same time as dealing with the reactions of those who do not welcome her priestly presence.

The story moves quickly. The dialogue generally is vivid and authentic. The final dénouement is unashamedly Australian in its tragic proportions.

The novel’s brevity (131 pages in my downloaded version) is a short-coming. It does not allow sufficient time or texture to provide a high degree of reader satisfaction. The author plotted carefully, but the plot stays doggedly with Ros’s story. It may have been stronger with a sub-plot – perhaps that of the misogynist ex-seminarian who comes over as rather a cardboard villain. To have given him a more rounded history may have made him a more sympathetic character with more natural motivations for his violent response to Reverend Ros.

These criticisms aside, I enjoyed the book. It evokes country WA with a sharp but warm eye. It explores with insight the reactions – both rational and illogical – to woman priests. It exposes the petty politics of the parish pump with humour, but also portrays the best of Christian care within and across the denominations. It describes theological issues like healing ministries and denominational doctrines and their day by day impact on ordinary parishioners: authentic grass-tree theology!

In short, it is clearly written by one who knows the Anglican church well – Halliday’s Reef has much in common with Dunsborough! – and who is positive about her experience of it.

Ethel Webb Bundell is a former teacher – and an Anglican lay preacher - whose career has taken her over much of the South-West. This local colour enlivens the book with gorgeous beaches, possums in the wrong place, peppermint trees and (symbolic?) coastal scrub. Even some precarious ‘scripture’ lessons and Chaplaincy Committee meetings are recounted with affectionate wit.

It’s good to discover an engaging and easily-read story written for a wider audience which reflects so much that is good about ordinary Australian Anglicanism. I look forward to more in this vein from Ethel Webb Bundell.
© Ted Witham 2001
First published in Anglican Messenger 2001 ( )