The Witch's Thorn (1951) is a novel by Australian author Ruth Park.Austlit - The Witch's Thorn by Ruth Park
Plot outline The novel is set in the fictional New Zealand North Island town of Te Kana. After the disappearance of her consumptive mother and the death of her beloved grandamother, Bethell Jury is adopted by her Aunt Amy whose husband is the local grocer and whose son is an unpleasant lout.
Critical reception The initial press reaction to this novel was not good: The Advertiser (Adelaide) found "There is wonderful material in this for a colorful novel of New Zealand life, but Ruth Park resolutely sticks to the horror and the sordidness whose sensational exploitation marred her Sydney novels";"Latest Fiction" The Advertiser, 12 January 1952, p6 The Examiner (Launceston) was blunt in stating that " it is inspired by cruelty, disease, despair, blasphemy and death";"The Low-Down on Down Under" The Examiner, 5 July 1952, p12 and The Sydney Morning Herald noted that The New York Times called it "unplotted and nervously episodic"."Ruth Park Book Criticised" The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 December 1952, p3
Possibly in a sort of response to these views, Kirkus Reviews noted: "There's an unblinking realization of the rough and tumble of bare subsistence, of the good in the bad and the worst in the best of us that gives this a raw insistence which may repel or attract.""The Witch's Thorn by Ruth Park" Kirkus Reviews
See also 1951 in Australian literature
Notes Dedication: For Charles Hutchinson: unforgotten.
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