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The four fires in this story are passion, religion, warfare and fire itself. While there are many more fires that drive the human spirit, love being perhaps the brightest flame of all, it is these four that have moulded us most as Australian people. The four fires give us our sense of place and, for better or for worse, shape our national character.
In a small town like any other small town around Australia live the Maloneys. They are a fifth-generation Australian family of Irish Catholic descent who are struggling to reach the first rung of the social ladder. The Maloneys are a family you won't forget: a strong mother, a father broken by war, three boys and two girls, one of whom has an illegitimate daughter. Each of their lives is changed forever by the four fires.
Four Fires is unashamedly a story of the power of love and the triumph of the human spirit against the odds. Not since writing The Power of One have I felt this close to a book.
Bryce Courtenay
FOUR FIRES AN EXTRACT
SARAH'S feeling pretty embarrassed at being the only girl and her being in the family way to boot. Morrie doesn't seem to notice that he's equally the odd person out. He smiles at everyone and chats to Sarah and seems very excited. You'd have to wonder a bit what there is for him to get excited about, seeing he's got to do most of the hard work to become a doctor all over again and he's going to have to get a night job as well. Morrie's passed
the foreign doctors' exam they held last year in September so he can skip first year. I wasn't there, of course, but Sarah's pretty good at remembering things and I've listened
to Morrie's version of what happened that first day as well and I think I can put it all together more or less the way it happened. Professor Marcus Block is sitting in Room 18 in
Medical Block 22 together with the assistant registrar, Mr Tompkins. There are 60 students to be interviewed on this day although there are 248 first-year students in all. They wait in
this big hallway with polished lino and white...