BOOK REVIEW A search for personal, political roots Wishart's Quest by Peter Corris
Reviewed by Muhammad Cohen
The dean of Australian crime fiction, Peter Corris, also writes literary
fiction. At his best, Corris draws on his background as a historian and keen
observer of contemporary Australia as well as a world traveler to infuse plots
with the urgency and intrigue of a good detective yarn. Wishart's Quest is
Peter Corris at his best.
A great read begins with a great story. Tom Wishart is a 30-something academic
who began his life as a foundling left outside a hospital. He's barely troubled
about his unknown ancestry until he sees a portrait that strongly resembles him
in an art gallery in New England - that's Australia's New England in northern
New South Wales, an area with a large proportion of Aboriginal and
mixed residents. That sighting ignites his curiosity, and Wishart's quest
begins.
The trail leads Wishart across Australia and to Hong Kong, taking his seemingly
settled life into new, unexpected directions. It also runs through time, back
decades to the Vietnam War, the emergence of the Australian left wing and the
evolution of a multiracial society and multiracial Australians. Corris tells
the story through the eyes of the three principals, Wishart and the young
sweethearts who turn out to be his biological parents.
Found in a phone booth outside a hospital in Sydney, the abandoned baby was
adopted by Lawrence and Samantha Wishart, childless, devout Baptists. The kind
but joyless couple raised young Tom in accordance with their beliefs. His
achievements as a student and an athlete delighted them less than his teenaged
rejection of their beliefs displeased him.
Mirror on the wall The Wisharts never mentioned that he was adopted and Tom's discovery of
that secret deepened their estrangement. A fast-blooming career as a historian,
a brief marriage to an economist and an amicable divorce left Wishart alone and
comfortable in his skin. But the painting that looked like a younger version of
him, and included the quirk he shared of three left hand fingers of equal
length, presents a mystery he must solve.
Paul Bushell - the young man in the portrait - was the elder son of a wealthy
farmer and rancher in the New England town of Yellua who gave the area many
gifts, including the art gallery where Wishart saw the painting. James
Bushell's two sons, Paul and Adam, were close, but different. While Paul went
to university to study languages, less gifted Adam was drafted to fight in
Vietnam. The Bushell family's military history went back to the Boer War, and
James was proud of his role in World War II. He applauded Adam for doing his
duty and hoped it would give him direction. Unfortunately, the direction turned
out to be six feet under - Adam was killed in action in 1969.
In response, Paul Bushell dropped out of university and volunteered for
Vietnam, against his father's wishes. Bushell won a field promotion, military
decorations, and a reputation for recklessness with his soldiers' lives -
Wishart suffers for that reputation decades later at a barbecue. But Paul's
resolve to join the war based on some notion of honor turned abject horror when
he encountered the reality of Vietnam. He turned from fighting the war to
finding a way out.
Underworld journey Bushell's escape route plunged him into the underworlds of Vietnam, the
Philippines and Hong Kong. Moreover, combat and its aftermath led Bushell to
plumb the darkest depths of his own soul. Even though Bushell left the war, as
with many veterans, the war never left him. He had learned to kill to survive,
and that lesson would mark the rest of his life and the lives he touched.
Diana Saunders was the girl Paul Bushell left behind in Yinara, Yellua's
poorer, darker rival town. In her final year of high school, one of the few
part-Aboriginals to progress that far in Yinara, Saunders hoped to join Bushell
at university in Sydney. Instead, within weeks of the exam, he abruptly broke
up with her and enlisted in the army. Depressed, Saunders failed her exams. But
she had faith that she still meant something to Bushell, that the breakup had
been a ploy to lessen the heartache of separation, and wrote to him in Vietnam,
revealing her own daring escape plan.
Saunders felt she was ready for more than the dead end, small town life most
Aboriginals were consigned to as the 1970s dawned. She ran away, hoping to
leave her roots behind her. She didn't get further than the bus to Sydney
before discovering that those roots were a source of strength and community as
well as a burden. But it was by passing as white that she found her footing.
Second chance Still stung by her exam failure, Saunders returned to school. In night
classes, she caught the eye of a leftist teacher with political ambitions who
saw her Aboriginal ancestry as a potential path to advancement for both of
them. Saunders succeeded in her studies this time, but, even as months of
waiting for a reply became years, she still carried her torch for Bushell.
Using his skills as a historian and the equivalent of a research grant from
James Bushell to his presumed grandson to grease a few palms, Wishart is able
to piece together the final chapter of how destiny reunited Paul and Diana to
meet what fate had in store for them.
Throughout the book, readers get insights into the social dynamics at play and
how they evolve over four decades in Australia. The situation for Aboriginals
is portrayed in subtle detail, from rural poverty to urban ghettoes,
illustrating the various means by which they've been cut off from their
cultural heritage. Their plight combines the worst of racism found at the two
poles Australia lies between that each exerts gravitational forces on the
continent. Aboriginals face the overt discrimination black people suffered in
the United States, as well as the more nuanced prejudice that Southeast Asians,
Chinese and other minorities experience.
In the hands of a less able novelist, the plot could easily descend into cliche
coated in stereotype. But Corris' mastery of plot, characters and modern
Australian history keeps the tale real, relevant and riveting. If there's a
better storyteller to be found in Australia, or on any other continent, I'm
still waiting to read them.
Wishart's Quest by Peter Corris. North Melbourne, Australia, Press On
Publishing, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-921509-54-4. US$23; 282 pages.
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Found in a phone booth outside a hospital in Sydney, the abandoned baby was
adopted by Lawrence and Samantha Wishart, childless, devout Baptists. The kind
but joyless couple raised young Tom in accordance with their beliefs. His
achievements as a student and an athlete delighted them less than his teenaged
rejection of their beliefs displeased him.
,
a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal,
financial crisis, and cheap lingerie. Follow 
