Based on a true story this stunningly beautifully written book is a must read for any Australian x

This is the third Bryce Courtenay book I have read and it did not disappoint. It is a very sad book in many ways, but not maudlin. Apparently the story is based on true events, but I have been unable to find anything about Jessica online, except for a groundbreaking court case near the end of the book, about which I would like to read more.
Jessica gets no breaks in this book - so don't expect a happy ending. She is happy enough, if you discount the tragedies that have brought her to the conditions in which she lives. She has friends and mentors which literally save her life and sanity. There are many good things in this book.
I loved the vivid descriptions of the Australian outback and the hard lives lived in such conditions.

This is Jessicas story..

I have had a long-standing admiration for Bryce Courtenay and his books, all of which have captivated me early in my reading experience. While they are usually long and quite tangential, their thread is one that can be easily followed and the plot constantly evolves,
Moving from the age of fourteen through to her mid-twenties, Jessica’s life is influenced by a number of events that take her along paths that could not have been foreseen. She becomes one person that the reader cannot help but admire and her tribulations.
A young girls fight for justice against tremendous odds. A tomboy, Jessica is the pride of her father, as they work on the struggling family farm. One quiet day the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder. Only Jessica is able to save the killer from the lynch mob..but will justice prevail in the courts? And Then Nine months later, a baby is born Joey...with Jessica determined to guard the secret of the father's identity. The rivalry of Jessica and her beautiful sister for the love of the same man will echo throughout their lives-until the truth must be told. Set amongst the harsh Australian bush against the outbreak of world ww1, this novel is heartbreaking in its innocence, and shattering in its brutality.

A fascinating account of two women’s (mother and daughter) determination to gain wealth, and respectability at any cost. Lies, forgery, murder, abduction and a fake pregnancy all conspire to rob their daughter, and sister of her child. But Jessie, their victim is a fighter. With an assortment of oddball friends and social outcasts, she fights back, not just against her own sister and mother, but against a government policy that tries to breed black out of its indigenous peoples.
Set against the baron squalor, and racial prejudice of the Australian outback before, during, and post world war one ‘Jessica’ is based on real events. A must read.

The most depressing book I have ever read, I read this many years ago and it still gives me nightmares. I kept waiting for it to get better but I really shouldn't have finished reading this book. If I could erase one book from my brain, this would be the one.

Second time reading this 20yrs apart- enough time to forget the small plot twists and still ugly cry. A beautiful true story that is a must read.

5-Word Review:
Bleak, heartbreaking, inspirational, tragic, tearjerker

Memorable Quotes

"This is country to make hard men whimper and bite their knuckles in their sleep."

"This is a place to break your heart and leave no sentiment to alleviate a life of bitterness and struggle. Three hundred days a year a hard-faced sky mocks any hope of rain and every miserable dog’s day dawn is much the same as the one before it. Monotony and stoicism are constant companions, imagination a bad habit to be quickly stamped out of young children so that they may be made useful and compliant. It is here where, at dusk, the snakes dance on the banks of the Murrumbidgee."

"Yes, Jessica knows her old man, all right. He can be a real stubborn bugger with a bad temper, but as for dog-eat-dog, Joe never ate another dog in his life."

‘I saw it in the Boer War, bullshit baffles brains every time when it comes to joining up and wearing a uniform with brass buttons and a cockade of chook’s feathers in your flamin’ bush hat!’"

"Jessica has never wanted to be a man – she just doesn’t want to have to act stupid, to be less than she is."

"She’s still a girl and therefore she must publicly cop their scorn and privately feed their fantasies."

"... in their minds acting stupid is part of being smart if you’re a female."

"‘Being poor is like the drought: when the rains come and the paddocks are up to a sheep’s belly in green grass, remember that the mud is only wet dust waiting to dry out."

"The Jack Thomas who has always accepted her as an equal, as a mate – yet loved her as a woman, too shy to show the tenderness she could see in his eyes when he looked at her. That is the Jack, the Jack who called her Tea Leaf, whom they could never take away from her. This is the Jack she would wait for until the end of her life."

"But Moishe didn’t see things in quite the same way. He held that most of what we believed in was wrong. That the world could be a better place without so many fixed ideas, that humans were like sheep allowing themselves to be led by the dog who barks the loudest and bites the hardest."

"Language is the very soul of a culture. A people’s collective imagination, their myths and stories, their place on earth, their continuity, that thing which gives them a soul and makes them different and wonderful, comes from their language."

"Your Honour, how strong yet fragile is the human condition. We can take starvation and hardship and all manner of physical pain and we may still recover, but if it is done to our heads and our hearts, that cannot be repaired. If we are loved we can endure. If we are hated we will soon perish in spirit. It is when we are young that the love will nourish and the hate will most effectively destroy."

"A child is not a half-caste, or a quadroon or an octoroon, or white or black, it is a small heart that can be made to trust and love or one that can be made to beat in terror and fear. Colour or breed or race doesn’t change this. We do. We control this love or we create the fear."

"As long as history shall prevail, the love of a mother for her child cannot be replaced by an institution which will give the child a full belly and an empty heart."

“Mary, you can’t give more love than they’ve already got.”’ Sudden tears well in Mary’s eyes as she remembers. ‘He was right, Jessie. Whitefella love is the same as blackfella love. Me kids were loved, that’s all a mother can ask for."

I'm sorry to say that I haven't enjoyed this book as much as I expected.
Comparisons are usually worthless, but I can't help but think of Courtenay's former novel, "The Power of One" and find that "Jessica" lacked originality and spirit.
Whereas I loved Peekay and Doc and the way the story flowed, with its easy prose, written almost like a fairy tale, with strong conviction and hope; I wasn't drawn to Jessica or her problems. I thought she was a grown up woman when she has to deal with the sneaky ways of her family (it was hard to believe that a mother could be that evil) and I believe her supposed stubbornness to protect Jack is what mostly brought her to such a desolate destiny. Didn't feel sorry for Jack neither, who finally betrays her without a blink.
And then, after all this unearned hardship, she has to earn the reader's respect in the last part of the book, where she fights for the rights of the Aborigines while helping black Mary Sympson to get her children back, although I have to admit that I was shocked by the end of the story and a bit shaken while reading the last pages.
All in all, I found the novel a cheap copy of "The Power of One", the same topics are discussed: the unfairness of life, strong characters who fight for justice, racism (there's also some Jew characters who play an important role at the end of the novel), human rights and war. All theses issues are discussed in the book, which is fine, but not great if you have had the pleasure of reading his masterpiece before.
It has to be really difficult to write something that good and then be able to create something better.

Unlucky Jessica

Jessica is a fair dinkum story about a broad called Jessie who isn’t afraid to do some hard yakka to support her family which was viewed us unladylike back in the day. The town that is set in Woop Woop, view Jessie as being a stubbie short of a six pack because she would rather be out in the bush giving her Dad a hand rather then cooking up some chow with her Mum and sister Meg. Jessie isn’t viewed as a stunner or a beauty compared to her sister Meg but she’s a good ripper in the yard and just as good as any bloke where she makes mates and a few buggers that influence her journey from being an ankle biter to a real top shiela
Jessica is all about survival in the Aussie outback when faced with no fair crack of the whip with heartbreak, betrayal and a fight for justice

The story of Jessica Bergman is set in the countryside of Australia around 1910. She grows up helping her father, Joe and learning the life in the rural area, a very harsh one, encompassed by drought, lack of money and the constant danger of poisonous snakes. That is not the fate of Jessica's sister, though, Meg. She is her mother's preferred child and is spared to be a lady and marry a rich guy. She is also more beautiful and educated than Jessica. She learns the housework rather. For the need of money Joe and Jessica get a job at the richest family in the village during the shearing season. Jessica, who is better than a boy at the job, happens to work together with the 2 rich boys that Meg has always been after, Jack and Billy. They become good friends silently and Jessica wins their heart with her simplicity and friendship. Without realizing she is also stealing Jack's heart and will cause havoc at home ruining her sister's (and mother's) plan. It is to defend her from other boys that worked in the shearing shed that Billy challenges them to a fight. He is strong but is caught by surprise and an accident happens with Jack's horse stepping on his head. He will not die, but he will lose his mind for good and will be abused by his own sisters and mother, spoilt brats in the rich house. One day Billy, now called Billy Simple for his condition will take revenge and kill the mother and the 2 sisters. His escape leads him to Jessica's house. She learns from him what happened and helps him escape the lynch from a mob, delivering him to the magistrate in Narrandera. She almost dies in the attempt and is Jack ahead of the mob that takes care of her for a couple of days. Billy will be sentenced to death but Jessica wins both the admiration and the suspect of having more than a friendship with Billy, especially when she finds to be pregnant some months later. She is banished and gossip that she is mad spread by her sister and mom. Meg meanwhile tries to trap Jack by making love to him and forcing him to marry her, pretending to be pregnant. As Jack is leaving to the war in Europe he does marry Meg but promises his heart to Jessica. Meg tries to fake a miscarriage in front of the Church old organist unaware of a letter from Jack's uncle specifying the conditions of the wedding. They end up having to kill the witness as the plan does not work and Meg goes on with the fake pregnancy. Jessica meanwhile has been banished from the house and will deliver her baby alone. The same day, Joe dies and in the funeral, Jessica's baby is said to be Meg's and due to her aggressive reaction, she is sent to a mental institution.
Well, here the book takes a turn. Did the author not know how to continue and how to close up the drama? Jessica will meet some new people, a Jewish who will help her and also contact Billy's case lawyer to help her get part of the benefits that Meg stole through Jack's marriage. Jack died in the war. After 4 years in the mental institution, she is freed and goes back to the old home, happens to burn it down and moves to the hat by the creek where she delivered the baby. There what unfolds is a tale of help to the Aboriginal woman Mary Simpson who wants her kids back through some court cases. I found this development very odd. It seemed like the author did not have the inspiration to continue the original story, or...what? It is odd that the author sort of writes the first half of the book in a soap opera fashion, then abandons the style altogether and makes the book become a sort of court case story of Aboriginal (who, by the way, was not linked at all with the first half of the book), then closes it with a link to the romantic section: In the last page, Jessica simply dies by a snake bite and we got to know that her son was Jack's. The author spent so much time building Jessica's strong character and she never even went to her mother and sister to get a go at them. The second half of the book departs from the previous. When the fake miscarriage happens, the chapter ends with "because of this, xxxx will happen for the next 50 years to come"... but that isn't what the book will tell. It looks like two different books in one. I would not recommend it.

Bryce Courtney is unsurpassed when it comes to Australian story telling. I shed tears, I laughed and I cringed at the arrogance of white Australia's history.