The Thorn Birds
Colleen McCullough · 1977
The great Australian saga of forbidden love. Meggie and Father Ralph de Bricassart's decades-spanning impossible relationship unfolds against the brutal beauty of the Outback. McCullough understood that the most powerful romances are the ones where love can never be fully claimed, and she built a world worthy of that tragedy.
The case against
Ralph first cherishes Meggie when she is ten and he is a grown priest, which modern readers will find harder to romanticize than 1977 did. McCullough's prose runs purple, the sheep-station detail piles up, and the final generation (Justine in Europe) feels like a different, lesser novel stapled onto the saga.
Romance · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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