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Elizabeth Stead takes readers into the hard, grinding world of a New South Wales Housing Commission Camp for the homeless at the end of 1948. The three remaining members of the Sparrow family, widow Hanora and her two teenage daughters Aria and Margaret Rose, have been evicted from their lodgings after Hanora’s brief career as a kept woman ended with her lover’s appearance in the divorce courts. Father Sparrow had already suffered death by feline when he was run over by a Council van full of stray cats. Hanora takes up residence in a disused military camp, at 19B Edward Street, in one of eight hundred huts made of fibro, corrugated iron and rough timber; boiling in summer and freezing in winter.
The younger sister, Margaret Rose, the ‘Colonial Royal’, is embarrassed and humiliated; in her sister’s words she has ‘never coped well with life overturned’. Hanora is overcome by events and exists in a haze induced by various pharmaceutical products. Aria, who is the narrator of the novel, is the older sister and it is she who takes on responsibility for her family. She is a fixer and is sparrow-like in her manner: she loves her namesakes as ‘brave, scavenging little creatures’ but ‘sly as crows and with the hearts of savages’. It is not long before Aria starts to organize some of the camp’s more helpless residents; she always finds time to help others regain their confidence and self-respect. She also has a habit of saying exactly what she thinks, which often gets her into trouble, but she won’t apologize: ‘I’m not sorry’ is her catchcry. A trickle of money comes from Margaret Rose, who works as an apprentice to a milliner and Aria, who gets by as a ‘bottom-of-the-ladder’ photographic model; her physical assets are employed to ‘love’ a variety of commercial products. She does not believe in lost causes; when things get desperate for the Sparrows, it is Aria who puts her pride and reputation to one side to fight for a better future for her family.
The Sparrows of Edward Street is a wonderful novel about family relationships, about overcoming hardship and the strengths that people can gain from pulling together to beat the odds. It also provides an insight into the lives of those left damaged and poor in the years after World War Two. This is a story told with great humour; you will never look at a sparrow in the same way again.
Books in Print staff review by Chris *****
