SOURCE: "Grand Gestures," in London Review of Books, Vol. 17, No. 10, May 25, 1995, pp. 22-3.

In the following review, Hospital emphasizes the millennial tone of A River Town, comparing the novel's themes on Australia in 1900 to comtemporary Australian experience.

There is something about a millennium, something about the clicking over of zeros on the odometer of history that sends a frowsy doomsday swell welling up from under, Good round numbers beget both end-of-an-age unease and unreasonable hopes. They breed signs and wonders. They inspire large gestures towards New Beginnings.

In 1900, the year in which Thomas Keneally's most recent novel situates itself, the separate Australian colonies were reeling from economic depression and the worst drought since European settlement began in 1788. There were catastrophic losses of cattle and sheep, wheat plummeted to less than one-tenth of pre-drought yield, dustbowl conditions prevailed, bushfires raged, farmers and squatters were forced to abandon their land...