The Thorn Birds
Colleen McCullough, 1977
A family saga of forbidden love, ambition and the cost of wanting, stretching from the Australian outback to the Vatican.
Colleen McCullough
McCullough trained as a neurophysiologist and worked in brain research before The Thorn Birds made her famous.
Feels like longing, family and ambition.
Do we ever really change, or merely become ourselves?
Each of us has something within us which won’t be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that’s all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can’t affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it’s the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don’t you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it. Books by Colleen McCullough
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