Cloudstreet : A Novel

Hailed as a classic, Tim Winton's masterful family saga is both a paean to working-class Australians and an unflinching examination of the human heart's capacity for sorrow, joy, and endless gradations in between. An award-winning work, Cloudstreet exemplifies the brilliant ability of fiction to captivate and inspire.

Struggling to rebuild their lives after being touched by disaster, the Pickle family, who've inherited a big house called Cloudstreet in a suburb of Perth, take in the God-fearing Lambs as tenants. The Lambs have suffered their own catastrophes, and determined to survive, they open up a grocery on the ground floor. From 1944 to 1964, the shared experiences of the two overpopulated clans -- running the gamut from drunkenness, adultery, and death to resurrection, marriage, and birth -- bond them to each other and to the bustling, haunted house in ways no one could have anticipated.

Heady words, and I snapped at the bait, intrigued by the raving reviews of the readers. (Be careful not to read all of them, as one gives away the entire ending in one sentence).

I was not disappointed. I was completely captivated by this story in a way I have never been by any other. The originality, teasing slang and the insight into australian post-world war II was a hearty combination that cadenced into one of the most fascinating books I have ever read.

This book went with me everywhere. I discussed it with many and especially enjoyed lingering over certain sentences ripe with slang. It was probably one of the most delightful aspects of reading this book; the freshness and foreigness to me as an American reading the saucy expressions of Australians. The humor is hilarious, and there was a smile for nearly every page I read and also moments that made your heart melt. At this very moment, there are friends of mine working in medicine (hospital) still trying to figure out what Tim Winton meant by "the smell of nugget in the webbing."

Aside from the hilarity, the novel is about two families that by chance come together to live in the same large home. The Pickles Family inherits a large home from a relative that dies suddenly and unexpectantly. Thanks to this relative (Uncle Joel) and his wise forethought, he bars his brother, Sam from selling the home for 20 years. Joel's motivation is a premeditated attempt to protect the wife and children of Sam and Sam's gambling at the race tracks, not to mention the unfortunate work related amputation of his fingers on one hand that renders him nearly unemployable. Since things are pretty grim anyway (they are living above the bar that Joel owns and "working" off the rent,) Sam's drunken wife Dolly, and his children move on up to Cloudstreet and the mansion in the offering.

Sam, ever so shifty, immediately, and without prior consultation with the rest of his family, rents out one half of the house to the Lamb family. The Lambs are the absolute opposite of the Pickles. Religious, and with their own family sorrows, they pack in and set up a grocery store in their one half of the lower story to make a living.

The Lambs arrive after suffering through the near drowning of their most beloved son, Fish. (note the irony.)
Fish, retarded and prone to sensing spirits in the house and in and of himself becomes essential to the story and the telling. Revolving around this poor boy are the steel strength-heart soft mother, Oriel, and father Lester, a hen-pecked, sweet tempered,entertaining pa. Son "Quick" is the angst-ridden brother who feels responsible for Fish's accident and grows up fighting the evils around him. The other sisters round out this lively family.

Many characters and sub-plots keep this book a page turner that will entertain and move you. I look forward to reading the rest of his novels.

PS : there is a study guide for those that want to enhance the novel. See Amazon.com under author Tim Winton.


Sad . . .   September 4, 2000
Mark Keith (Mesa, AZ USA)
22 out of 23 found this review helpful

It is sad to see this book is out of print. I still have a hardback copy on my shelf. Since first reading the book -- the first time I read it I had actually checked it out of the library -- I have obtained three copies at my favorite used bookstore, giving away two copies to friends. Maybe it was because Tim Winton was not a household name even among readers or maybe it was because "Cloudstreet" did not appear in Harold Bloom's list of canonical books (and I felt it should have been), but there is no other work of fiction I've felt strong enough about to get three copies to give away two -- that I felt needed to be read and read by as many people as possible. A marvelous allegory, a great work of fantasy with so much of the gritty details of the mundane world you forget how unlikely these two families are that live in the house on Cloudstreet. The Pickles and The Lambs, the two sides of a spiritual person. The Lambs: moral, charitable, and hardworking, but without any faith. On the other end, Sam Pickle, a drunkard and gambler, but a man who knows about what it means to live in the shadow of God: that some days you cannot lose, and other days . . . to get out of bed is asking for trouble. And then there is Fish Lamb who half comes back from his watery grave, the other half living in the world of the spirit watching over the people he loves and telling us their story. I cannot say too much . . . this is a book that needs to be read and then it needs to be contemplated with the sense of wonder it evokes.


The great Australian novel?   May 25, 2000
R. Griffiths
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

If there was a competition for the greatest Australian novel of the Twentieth Century, Cloudstreet would be in the running for the top prize. It is an indictment of the American publishing industry that it appears to be out of print. Although Winton was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his later book, The Riders, Cloudstreet is the one that should have won it. Happily, the dramatization of Cloudstreet has endeared it to a new audience, but it it still worth saying: Wake up world, this is a classic novel.


"Perfectly. Always. Everyplace. Me."   September 19, 2000
Tiffiny Kellar (Sydney, Australia)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

This novel is a family epic, depicting working-class, ordinary, Australian life in an extraordinary and spiritual way. It follows the lives of two families, the 'Pickleses' and the Lambs, as we join them on their journey from isolation to unity. The entire novel, spanning twenty years, takes place in one moment, as Fish Lamb's life flashes before his eyes as he approaches death. Sometimes confusing, this funny, beautiful book is better appreciated with close study, although it can be enjoyed on any level.


Crowded House   March 9, 2004
Michael S. Mahoney (Louisville, KY United States)
8 out of 11 found this review helpful

In this decades spanning meditation on luck and fate, two families who share a rambling house discover the ties that bind. Winton writes in a slang-filled idiom that captures the resilience of Australians, their uncanny ability to dust themselves off and spit in the face of misfortune. The Lambs lose a son to retardation, Dolly Pickles loses her looks to time and the bottle, and her husband, reduced to five good fingers, loses over and over at the track. Somehow they endure. The younger generation, represented by the memorable Rose Pickles and Quick Lamb, fly from a messy nest only to feel the undeniable pull of the familiar and family. Winton's survivors win your heart and his evocation of Perth, surrounded by sea and sand, takes you to a town on the edge of the earth. Fair dinkum.