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A Power of Roses
Roses were rarely seen at the old Jerusalem hotel.Life is hard, and for some of the tenants a luxury might be warm feet, cat's meat stew or a five-bob coat from a jumble sale.In A Power of Roses, Ruth Park draws vivid portraits of Miriam, the tough adolescent heroine; her Uncle Puss, a canny old Irishman; and a colourful assortment of inhabitants who live in the hotel's damp, rat-infested rooms.
285 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
About the author
Ruth Park
83 books117 followersRuth Park was a New Zealand-born author, who spent most of her life in Australia. She was born in Auckland, and her family later moved to Te Kuiti further south in the North Island of New Zealand, where they lived in isolated areas.
During the Great Depression her working class father worked on bush roads, as a driver, on relief work, as a sawmill hand, and finally shifted back to Auckland as council worker living in a state house. After Catholic primary school Ruth won a partial scholarship to secondary school, but this was broken by periods of being unable to afford to attend. For a time she stayed with relatives on a Coromandel farming estate where she was treated like a serf by the wealthy landowner until she told the rich woman what she really thought of her.
Ruth claimed that she was involved in the Queen Street riots with her father. Later she worked at the Auckland Star before shifting to Australia in 1942. There she married the Australian writer D'Arcy Niland.
Her first novel was The Harp in the South (1948) - a story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which was translated into 10 languages. (Some critics called it a cruel fantasy because as far as they were concerned there were no slums in Sydney.) But Ruth and D'Arcy did live in Sydney slums at Surry Hills. She followed that up with Poor Man's Orange (1949). She also wrote Missus (1985) and other novels, as well as a long-running Australian children's radio show and scripts for film and TV. She created The Muddle-Headed Wombat series of children's books. Her autobiographies are A Fence Around the Cuckoo (1992) and Fishing in the Styx (1993). She also wrote a novel based in New Zealand, One-a-pecker, Two-a-pecker (1957), about gold mining in Otago (later renamed The Frost and The Fire).
Park received awards in Australia and internationally.
Winner of the Dromkeen Medal.
During the Great Depression her working class father worked on bush roads, as a driver, on relief work, as a sawmill hand, and finally shifted back to Auckland as council worker living in a state house. After Catholic primary school Ruth won a partial scholarship to secondary school, but this was broken by periods of being unable to afford to attend. For a time she stayed with relatives on a Coromandel farming estate where she was treated like a serf by the wealthy landowner until she told the rich woman what she really thought of her.
Ruth claimed that she was involved in the Queen Street riots with her father. Later she worked at the Auckland Star before shifting to Australia in 1942. There she married the Australian writer D'Arcy Niland.
Her first novel was The Harp in the South (1948) - a story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which was translated into 10 languages. (Some critics called it a cruel fantasy because as far as they were concerned there were no slums in Sydney.) But Ruth and D'Arcy did live in Sydney slums at Surry Hills. She followed that up with Poor Man's Orange (1949). She also wrote Missus (1985) and other novels, as well as a long-running Australian children's radio show and scripts for film and TV. She created The Muddle-Headed Wombat series of children's books. Her autobiographies are A Fence Around the Cuckoo (1992) and Fishing in the Styx (1993). She also wrote a novel based in New Zealand, One-a-pecker, Two-a-pecker (1957), about gold mining in Otago (later renamed The Frost and The Fire).
Park received awards in Australia and internationally.
Winner of the Dromkeen Medal.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 26, 2018
I wasn't sure I was going to like this one - the first half was so bleak and depressing. The vulnerability of the old, in particular the poverty stricken old was well depicted & I couldn't but shed a tear or two.
But this was the story of Miriam McKillop, abandoned by her mother, being brought up by "Uncle Puss" in post WW2 Sydney, & growing like a flower growing in a crack in the concrete.
While physically plain (& malnourished) she has a beautiful soul. A large cast of characters (good, bad, indifferent) is well realised. &. even in the hard times, there is some of Park's dry wit.
If the racism of the time (& in this book it starts from Page 1) bothers you, this won't be the book for you. I don't believe Park herself was racist - she is trying to depict this really tough world without sugar coating.
But this was the story of Miriam McKillop, abandoned by her mother, being brought up by "Uncle Puss" in post WW2 Sydney, & growing like a flower growing in a crack in the concrete.
While physically plain (& malnourished) she has a beautiful soul. A large cast of characters (good, bad, indifferent) is well realised. &. even in the hard times, there is some of Park's dry wit.
Sweeties were a breakfast cereal. They did not snap, crackle or pop or do anything the more talented cereals did.
If the racism of the time (& in this book it starts from Page 1) bothers you, this won't be the book for you. I don't believe Park herself was racist - she is trying to depict this really tough world without sugar coating.
January 7, 2021
I am so grateful that I found Ruth Park’s beautiful work just a few years back thanks to a Twitter reading group suggestion. My husband knows how much I love her writing, and, given that her books aren’t available in our parochial little island, he finds me secondhand copies online and wraps them up for me at Christmas and birthdays. This Christmas I got two, and this book is a first edition with a faded cover (lost its dust cover) and yellowing pages, but this matters not a jot, dear fellow reader, because it’s the reading that matters! There is also a lovely inscription on the fly leaf (and who among us does not relish an inscription in a secondhand book?) :
‘To Father Mac
From Jackie + Charlie
Hoping you spend a pleasant time reading it ‘
Ruth Park writes such keenly observed characters, and with deep compassion. Her people live hard lives and sometimes have tragic deaths, she doesn’t look away from the sorrows of the destitute, the unloved, the outcast, but she also pictures the manifest love and spirit of many human beings. You really care about her characters, and, unlike the dread dark hand of Cormac McCarthy, this author does allow at least some of them some happiness in the end!
Happily there are more to read, and then there’s always re-reading. I still maintain that Swords and Crowns and Rings is one of the most glorious books I’ve ever read ❤️
‘To Father Mac
From Jackie + Charlie
Hoping you spend a pleasant time reading it ‘
Ruth Park writes such keenly observed characters, and with deep compassion. Her people live hard lives and sometimes have tragic deaths, she doesn’t look away from the sorrows of the destitute, the unloved, the outcast, but she also pictures the manifest love and spirit of many human beings. You really care about her characters, and, unlike the dread dark hand of Cormac McCarthy, this author does allow at least some of them some happiness in the end!
Happily there are more to read, and then there’s always re-reading. I still maintain that Swords and Crowns and Rings is one of the most glorious books I’ve ever read ❤️
March 23, 2017
Another beautiful rendition of the difficult life in inner Sydney of migrants to our country. As always it contains the details of personalities and the liveliness of their humour and relationships.
September 16, 2026
This story begins so bleakly, I almost talked myself into abandoning it after the first few chapters. But I ended up loving it. So much so that on the strength of reading it, I've just ordered another batch of Ruth Park's vintage novels.
It tells a story about the riff-raff residents of the dilapidated Jerusalem apartments in the heart of Sydney. These folk each do their best to stay dignified when just trying to stay adequately fed and clothed is incredibly difficult and demoralizing. It begins with young Miriam McKillop buying 'backbones for me cat,' because she and her uncle can't afford higher quality fish. However, the collection of tails, fins, and fish heads is destined to flavor their own stew.
These two are the heart of the story; Irish migrant Uncle Puss McKillop (whose real name is Percival or 'Perce') and canny young Miriam, the great niece he has brought up, who can love with great ferocity.
Not only does Ruth Park weave us right into the picture with her world-building, but she does it in an intriguing metaphysical way. She entices us readers with the probability of a deeper, invisible plane of existence which infuses the more lovable characters with optimism and hope. For example, 'Miriam was aware of a fairy world, hanging heavenlike behind the accidents of this life', and hence so are we.
To mention a few other colorful characters their story entwines with, there is young Dunkie, a handsome and opinionated boy who can't walk, and whose self-focus naturally reflects his narrow physical outlook. There is the desperately devout Mr Creepin' Christmas, who runs the fish n' chip shop, and Mr Holland, the shy young minister whose job feels way out of his depth.
At one stage, the community is rocked by the healing ministry of the Reverend Doctor Maisley, who operates his outreach in a similar style to the Duke and the King from Huckleberry Finn. And I'll keep secret the identity of one of my favorite characters who ushers in change with great panache.
There is a lad named Porgy Ketchel whose fondest dream is to someday work on a garbage truck, which he fears is out of his league. The most menacing presence in the book is Porgy's father, Cheap Billy Ketchel, a vicious and resentful bully who keeps rehearsing his litany of injustices. I'd challenge any reader to come up with a single redeeming feature for this bloke.
Looking back over the plot, it seems to me that Park uses some form of literary natural selection to weed out the more malevolent and negative influences from the Jerusalem, so that only the benign, loving, and harmless remain. And brace yourselves for a perfectly planned and executed revenge mission with a real Australian bite. It probably couldn't be done now, with our high-tech surveillance tools, but one character quietly does many others a colossal favor.
The author blurb in this old edition reveals that Ruth Park, along with her husband, D'Arcy Niland, was forced to live in a Sydney slum tenement for a while, owing to the shortage of adequate housing following World War Two. Aha, no wonder her descriptions bear such a compassionate insider's touch. Park's writing is alchemical, spinning gold from straw.
The ending brims with heartbreaking closures and exciting new beginnings. As for the title, we are rewarded by learning why 'a power of roses' is Uncle Puss's whole life philosophy all condensed into four words.
It tells a story about the riff-raff residents of the dilapidated Jerusalem apartments in the heart of Sydney. These folk each do their best to stay dignified when just trying to stay adequately fed and clothed is incredibly difficult and demoralizing. It begins with young Miriam McKillop buying 'backbones for me cat,' because she and her uncle can't afford higher quality fish. However, the collection of tails, fins, and fish heads is destined to flavor their own stew.
These two are the heart of the story; Irish migrant Uncle Puss McKillop (whose real name is Percival or 'Perce') and canny young Miriam, the great niece he has brought up, who can love with great ferocity.
Not only does Ruth Park weave us right into the picture with her world-building, but she does it in an intriguing metaphysical way. She entices us readers with the probability of a deeper, invisible plane of existence which infuses the more lovable characters with optimism and hope. For example, 'Miriam was aware of a fairy world, hanging heavenlike behind the accidents of this life', and hence so are we.
To mention a few other colorful characters their story entwines with, there is young Dunkie, a handsome and opinionated boy who can't walk, and whose self-focus naturally reflects his narrow physical outlook. There is the desperately devout Mr Creepin' Christmas, who runs the fish n' chip shop, and Mr Holland, the shy young minister whose job feels way out of his depth.
At one stage, the community is rocked by the healing ministry of the Reverend Doctor Maisley, who operates his outreach in a similar style to the Duke and the King from Huckleberry Finn. And I'll keep secret the identity of one of my favorite characters who ushers in change with great panache.
There is a lad named Porgy Ketchel whose fondest dream is to someday work on a garbage truck, which he fears is out of his league. The most menacing presence in the book is Porgy's father, Cheap Billy Ketchel, a vicious and resentful bully who keeps rehearsing his litany of injustices. I'd challenge any reader to come up with a single redeeming feature for this bloke.
Looking back over the plot, it seems to me that Park uses some form of literary natural selection to weed out the more malevolent and negative influences from the Jerusalem, so that only the benign, loving, and harmless remain. And brace yourselves for a perfectly planned and executed revenge mission with a real Australian bite. It probably couldn't be done now, with our high-tech surveillance tools, but one character quietly does many others a colossal favor.
The author blurb in this old edition reveals that Ruth Park, along with her husband, D'Arcy Niland, was forced to live in a Sydney slum tenement for a while, owing to the shortage of adequate housing following World War Two. Aha, no wonder her descriptions bear such a compassionate insider's touch. Park's writing is alchemical, spinning gold from straw.
The ending brims with heartbreaking closures and exciting new beginnings. As for the title, we are rewarded by learning why 'a power of roses' is Uncle Puss's whole life philosophy all condensed into four words.
March 15, 2020
I read this book because I am doing a course on Australian writing and I realised I haven't read much Australian fiction.
I enjoyed this story, though it was difficult to stay engaged in the story as there technically isn't any action. It is just a story about people living in poverty in Sydney.
I enjoyed this story, though it was difficult to stay engaged in the story as there technically isn't any action. It is just a story about people living in poverty in Sydney.
October 30, 2018
The author captures the daily grind of living under difficult conditions in inner Sydney post WW2/early 1950's
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews