Our Review
A New McCullough Classic
In the tradition of her epic bestseller, The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough offers up a saga of love found, love lost, and agony endured in Morgan's Run. McCullough brings history to life through the eyes of Richard Morgan, an Englishman swept up in the bitter vicissitudes of fate. McCullough's trademark flair for detail is like a ride in a time machine, transporting readers to the late 18th century. From the shores of Bristol, England, to the dungeons of a British prison, from the bowels of a slave ship to a penal colony on an island off the coast of New South Wales, McCullough brilliantly recreates the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of Morgan's life and times. The Revolutionary War is raging in America, and England is struggling with economic and social chaos. In the town of Bristol, Richard Morgan keeps to himself and tends to his family, making a decent living as a gunsmith and barkeep. But then Richard's quiet life begins to fall apart. His young daughter dies of smallpox, his wife becomes obsessively concerned about their son, and he loses his savings and his bar to a sophisticated con man. Then Richard's wife dies suddenly of a stroke, and his son is later lost and presumed dead after disappearing in a nearby river. The crowning blow comes when Richard reports illegal activities being carried out by the owner of the rum distillery where he works, and he ends up on the wrong end of a frame-up. Tried and convicted for thievery and blackmail in a justice system designed to presume guilt, Richard is deported on a slave ship of the "First Fleet" with a hundred or so other convicts bound for New South Wales, where they will be used to establish a colony. But the onboard conditions during the yearlong voyage are so awful that many of the convicts die. Richard, oddly calm, dignified, and withdrawn, not only survives but manages to thrive. His intelligence, manners, and skills earn him respect in the new colony, where he eventually earns a pardon and begins his life again. Based on McCullough's own family history, Morgan's Run has all the marks of a classic. In the novel's afterword, McCullough mentions that she hopes to continue this tale -- a hope that will no doubt be shared by millions of readers.

--Beth Amos