I had a very hard time getting into this novel, especially the chapters focused on Ikey Solomon. The high falutin word choices and the over blown descriptions of London’s gritty underbelly got in my way.
However, the out sized characters and their detailed stories drew me in. The incredible research certainly provides a tangible sense of time & place.
3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4 ⭐️

I enjoyed every word of this book,and who ever likes historical novels, will love it.
Australian's are lately so proud of their convict heritage(you can't become Australian now if you have a criminal record!), and most have romantic idea of settlers drinking Billy Tea and singing Waltzing Matilda, sitting around the fire in the bush, but reality of the times 200 years ago is much closer to this book.
Bryce Courtney likes to bring out "dirty laundry" and he does it with such elegance.
Characters are interesting and you just have love them,or hate them, you can't be indifferent.
Looking forward to second book in the Australian trilogy,...

I really enjoyed this sweeping epos. Courtenay has a gift for guiding the reader through his epic stories that are packed full of colourful characters, history and interesting facts about the working of the a wide variety of topics, including fencing, surviving in a prison colony, brewing beer and weather systems.

Holy Jesus Palamino, an incredible read, or listen mine, time to move on the next 2 of 3. Tommo & Hawk, the two sons of Mary.....

The story begins in England in the early 1800s and follows the lives of lowlife scoundrels, Ikey Solomon, “Prince of Fences”, a celebrated criminal of his time, and his wife Hana. It’s Oliver Twist's England and has the ‘feel’ of Dickens – or like watching “Oliver!” – but much grittier i.e. whores, the ‘sport’ of ratting, etc. and the author takes the reader through the details and nuances of various criminal ‘trades’ e.g. counterfeiting, houses of ill repute, etc. I found it very interesting.

Ikey is supposedly a historic character (and the book’s Forward try’s to justify its perspective, as it could be deemed to be highly anti-Semitic). As a Dickens fan, I found it utterly amazing that, the characters of Fagin (Ikey) and The Artful Dodger were ACTUALLY historical characters! Who would have thought?

Following the introduction of another major character, Mary Abacus, fate – and the English legal system – eventually transport each person via prison ships to Tasmania, where the author it able to tell his story of Australia – and start a generation trilogy and the ‘history’ of the continent’s development.

Courteney it a very good author and I enjoyed actually using a dictionary to better understand the slang of the times (although the meaning could be understood in context).

Ahhh! What an ending! Can’t wait to start the 2nd in the series.

Mary - what an incredible character. Such depth snd pain and strength. Potentially one of the most thought out characters I’ve gotten to spend time with!

So many twists and turns and adventures. Yeehaw this was great!

Many years ago I read "The Power of One" - Bryce Courtenay's book on South Africa......I never did read the sequal for some reason and I don't think I realized how many historical fiction books he had written. This summer I picked up Power of One again, and just so, so enjoyed it again. Courtenay's style of writing is gentle, informative, involving.....The people seem to be real people, with real histories and they tell the stories of the countries. Went on to read "Tandia", the second book in the South African series. Then got involved with Tasmania and the exportation of the English prisoners, criminals, anyone who did anything bad. The first book was "The Potato Factory" which started in England with several fabulous characters each one of which was finally deported to Hobart Town, Tasmania. The story becomes more and more involved with the history of the people, the transactions.......Once again I was in love with Bryce Courtenay. Last night I started the 2nd book in the Tasmanian trilogy: "Tommo and Hawk" and I placed an Amazon order for the 3rd book: Solomon's Song. Bryce Courtenay was just diagnosed with terminal cancer and is receiving a lot of press. I think other people will want to be just as involved with his wonderful writing as I have been.

A strong bit of writing, I think. I liked the characters and their stories, though it took a while to warm to some of them. Set in a pretty brutal time for minorities and those not of the upper ranks of society, especially women. Be prepared for the revoltingness of the London you see in Dickens (who makes a cameo appearance!), and know that the first 60-70% of the book takes place in London as opposed to Australia.
Part of the reason I read this was for some Australian historical fiction, and although what I got wasn't totally what I was expecting, it makes sense - for convict Australia to make sense, the cultural background really helps. Nothing much seemed overly romanticised, except for in some sense, goodness being sooner or later recognised and appreciated - when this happened it was kind of warm and fuzzy, though that was rare enough that it was a relief from the dirty harshness of the rest of the world you see in this book.

I was initially a little intimidated by the size...and the start was a slight bit slow. But I so enjoyed this historical novel. It is a well-researched novel about the growth of the colonies of England, Australia and New Zealand in the early 1800's and is told in a Dickensian manner. The central character in this story is Ikey Solomon whom most readers will recognize as ‘Fagan’ from ‘Oliver Twist.’ There are many other Dickens' parallel characters. Once in a while I would get caught up by the language and Olde English speech...but then found myself becoming 'fluent'. There are may different locations in the story and each lends itself to a sociologic study of human behavior. There is also a main theme throughout of good versus evil, with much room spent exploring the gray not the black and white interpretation. And an interesting part of Ikey's character is his tie to his Judaism, filled with politicking and story-telling in 1800's England.

I'm hooked and now have to read the trilogy!

The Potato Factory, by Bryce Courtenay, Narrated by Humphrey Bower, Produced by Bolinda Publishing, downloaded from audible.com.

This book is the first in a series of three. Bryce Courtenay, in an introduction which he read personally in the audio version, states that it is his tribute to Australia, a country which has given him much. (He was born in South Africa.)

This book is about Ikey Solomon, apparently a real person. He was raised in the poorest streets of London, became a thief, and trained a band of little boy pickpockets to bring him the best items to fence. He was called The Prince of Fences by the underbelly of London. The first part of this book, which mostly describes Ikey’s life, reads much like Oliver Twist, written in the same time period. IN fact, there apparently is an apocrophyal story that Charles Dickens knew Ikey Solomon, and used descriptions of Ikey’s “School of Light Fingers” in creating the pickpocket family in Oliver Twist.

Ikey is married to Hanna, and the two hate each other. Ikey meets Mary, known as Mary Abacus because, despite her very crippled hands, she can calculate faster using an abacus than anyone else and is a great bookkeeper for Ikey. Mary helps him with other schemes as well, and Hanna is very jealous of her. Then, Ikey becomes too greedy and crashes his empire, taking Mary with him. He deserts her and lets her take the downfall. Through a variety of circumstances and criminal behavior, Ikey, Hannah, and Mary all end up exiled to the penal colony in Australia. It is at this point, the second half of the book, that things get interesting. The first part drags a little, but eh second half, in Australia is compelling.

The book isn’t necessarily the best written book. Courtenay can’t seem to decide whether he wants it to be a novel, describing conversations and thoughts of the various characters, or a history. Both are interesting but don’t necessarily jell together. It is very interesting to hear about both the England and Australia poorest classes, where Mary can have her fingers stomped because she takes bookkeeping jobs away from men, where Jews, particularly in England are reviled, (Ikey and Hannah are Jewish) and where Mary, with the courage to do it, manages to start a brewing company, The Potato Factory, and do very well despite the male brewers who hate her. It appears the next couple of books will be about Mary and her two adopted sons and Ikey’s family, still warring against each other.

I have to say a word about Humphrey Bower. I cannot imagine anyone else narrating these books. His talent for all kinds of accents and voices is amazing. I think Bower makes the book, whereas maybe I wouldn’t have finished it if I had been reading it in Braille instead of listening to it. Very good, and I look forward to the other two in the series.

Holy sh*t, that was gruesome! It felt like Dickens meets Peaky Blinders. But what an incredible story. The effort that must have gone into the research and writing of this book is inconceivable. The subject matter is difficult to digest, but the storytelling pulls the reader along.

It took me forever to get through the first half of the book. No one escaped the horrific circumstances of the times, and I had to stop listening from time to time because some things were so disturbing. However, the book's last third was absolutely riveting, and I could not turn it off. I highly recommend the Audible version. Humphrey Bower is exceptional!

This was a hojillion pages of surprisingly well-paced storytelling. Usually longer books like these drag in places, but each time I started to think, "Okay, I'm about done hearing about this," the author immediately moved on.

If I were more motivated, I'd look into where the author got his information about jewish culture, but regardless of whether he actually went to the trouble to be authentic, it seems to jive pretty well with the culturally-but-not-spiritually-jewish people I know. So that was cool too.

The combination of dank, every-man-for-himself london town crime slum with Mary Abacus' persistently uplifting strifedom did a lot to keep the story from becoming stagnant -- add a little revenge, a math puzzle or two, whores and street urchins, and an excellent representation of the thick accents of the characters, and I was totally entertained.

"Always leave a little salt on the bread."