The Passage by Vance Palmer

First published: 1930

Type of work: Regional realism

Time of work: Early twentieth century

Locale: The central Queensland coast of Australia

Principal Characters:

• Anna Callaway, the widow of Bob Callaway and a longtime resident of the Passage
• Lew, her older son, a fisherman, quiet and enduring
• Hughle, her younger son, bright and outgoing
• Marnie, a daughter
• Dot, another daughter
• Tony, their uncle
• Clem McNalr, an aspiring art student and a friend of Lew
• Lena Christiansen, an adventuress who becomes Lew’s wife
• Craigle, a would-be sophisticate
• Osborne, an entrepreneur and real estate developer

The Novel

The Passage is the story of the Callaway family over a period of thirty-odd years and their relationship to a small area along the sparsely populated north-central coast of eastern Australia. Prior to the beginning of the novel, Bob Callaway had settled on the mainland across a narrow passage from Rathbone Island with his wife, Anna. He was good-natured, loving, and willing to work for his modest living among the tiny community of fishing families, but at unpredictable intervals would go “walkabout” (wandering) for months on end. The memory of this, along with a small house on the coast, remained as Bob Callaway’s legacy to his children.

The action proper begins after Bob’s death. Anna is attempting to rear her children: Fred, the oldest, followed by Lew, Hughie, Marnie, and Dot. Anna has aspirations for her children beyond the limited opportunities at the Passage. She sees their education as crucial to escaping the cloistered life of the Passage and to this end has sacrificed Lew to a life of labor among the fishermen to finance her dreams for the others, whom she views as more promising. Lew is a powerful, patient, slow-moving man seemingly suited for such a life. His laconic manner is deceptive, however, as it hides a sensitive nature. He perceives his mother’s intentions and resents her manipulations. Still, he recognizes need, and as no one else in the family is prepared to act as provider, he goes on with his work day after day.

Clem McNair, daughter of an itinerant quack doctor who owns land in the area, provides Lew with occasional company. She is an aspiring art student who wishes to leave the Passage to develop her own skills and is the only one to recognize in Lew his innate sensitivity, not unlike her own. She leaves, however, to attend various art schools in Europe. Lew laments her departure, as she provided an outlet to express his reflective self.

Anna, meanwhile, has focused her attention on Hughie. As a bright, energetic boy, he represents the pinnacle of her hopes. When he suddenly decides to leave school early to pursue part-time work with a local merchant, she is suspicious of his motivation and blames Lew. She softens somewhat when Hughie not only establishes a good reputation for himself among the locals but also proves to be a perspicacious young entrepreneur in starting a string of successful businesses in the area. Lew finances the businesses in the early stages, providing a stage for Hughie’s dramatic activities, but receives little recognition for his contribution, earned by hard work over the years.

Hughie’s success is dazzling. He is quickly catapulted into a fast crowd of inventors, celebrities, and beautiful women. The frenetic pace seems to suit him. His businesses continue to ride a wave of enthusiasm created by a developer named Osborne who has designs on transforming the sleepy Passage into a bustling, commercial holiday-resort area. Osborne buys up chunks of land, bulldozes, and advertises—all of which plays havoc with the established life of the community. He draws in visiting hordes and the result is predictable: “There were refreshment booths, motor-launches with variegated flags, and a jazz-band hammering out a brazen music that disturbed the white gulls hovering over the sandbanks, and made them respond with their own harsh cries.... Never had the quiet shores of the Passage seen such a promiscuous crowd before.”

Almost as if in protest over Osborne’s swelling project, Lew’s Uncle Tony dies. After his long life of work on the Passage, it appears as if he and his business will pass unnoticed in the great commotion of Osborne’s enterprises. Tony’s wife, Rachele, resists the possibility and asks Lew to take over the single-boat shipping operation to avoid liquidation.

Just as he has begun to extricate himself from debts incurred in helping Hughie, Lew agrees to help his relative and finds himself bearing the family burden once again. He steps back in the yoke and goes about his work quietly, methodically, and effectively. Soon he has two boats plying the waters on delivery runs, and the good effects of his success are visible in the men he employs. At one time merely shiftless and uninspired, they now blossom.

Among the crowds drawn by Osborne’s amenities is Lena Christiansen, a captivating woman of the world in the company of a would-be sophisticate named Craigie. When he first encounters this charming woman, Lew is smitten by her good looks. She, in turn, finds his rustic simplicity offbeat and quaint. In time, they are married—for the shallowest of reasons. It is clear from the beginning that the marriage will not last.

Lew, so frustrated by his lot initially, has come to take a rich satisfaction from both his work and the beauty of the region in which he has lived his entire life. He draws a strength from the ordinary people of the Passage, who share a history and way of life with him. Lena is more at home among the jaunty tennis crowd at Osborne’s hotel. Having more in common with Hughie’s need for movement and new challenges, Lena has taken on Lew and a life at the Passage merely as a lark. When it becomes evident to both spouses that their initial reasons for marrying are wearing thin, they have a baby, hoping to put their relationship on firmer ground. Peter, their son, fails to draw them closer. Each is devoted to him, yet in separate ways; they are forever quarreling about how to treat the boy. It is almost fortunate for them when Peter dies in a terrible mishap; in one sense, it frees them from each other. Lena returns to Craigie, and Lew chooses this moment to go walk-about.

In Lew’s absence, his businesses begin to decline. Slowly it becomes clear what he has meant to the community. It is not until Hughie finds himself in deep financial trouble and Dot asks Lew to return that he does so. He rekindles his businesses, reanimates his friends and employees, and mortgages everything to save Hughie. An unexpected surprise is that in the wake of Osborne’s sudden departure from the Passage for more prosperous fields, Clem has returned, her artistic talents having been assessed as mediocre. Clem and Lew, a bit scarred and weary, settle back into their easy rapport, secure in the sustaining power of the Passage and those who have made it their life.

The Characters

Lew is the central character of the novel. Initially perceived as brooding, he gradually reveals strength and resourcefulness upon which people are able to depend. His personality derives from and reflects the Passage itself: placid and vulnerable at times, yet determined to survive, endure, and sustain others.

Hughie, on the other hand, is more of a gambler, willing to work but also hooked on the idea of glamorous projects and fast money. He is quick to rely on the resources of others, slow to acknowledge his debts to his family. One hopes by the end of the novel that mother’s onetime favorite has become aware of his own limitations (as have Lew and Clem) and will act more responsibly as a result.

Clem has left the Passage feeling it insufficient for her dreams. She discovers that her estimation was wrong: Although she does not regret her time away—in fact, defending it as necessary—she is pleased to return to the locale that inspired her originally. Her journey is not much different from the walkabouts of Bob and Lew.

Palmer sacrifices depth in some of his characters to heighten the debate between those who would exploit the Passage and those who wish to preserve it. Some characters exist to represent points of view: Osborne and Craigie, for example. The characterization of Lena seems to be a conscious (and visible) effort to avoid this problem: Palmer rounds her out by showing that her sympathies do not lie wholly in one camp. Still, her movement from the Osborne camp, as realized in her marriage to Lew, seems improbable and false. Her emotional life seems contrived. Best among the minor characters are those who are native to the Passage, whom Palmer draws with vibrancy and uniqueness found in good local-color fiction.

Critical Context

Vance Palmer is best remembered for his short stories, anthologized with those of such other prominent practitioners of the art as Henry Lawson, Hal Porter, and Patrick White. Palmer published four volumes of short stories, The World of Men (1915), Separate Lives (1931), Sea and Spinifex (1934), and Let the Birds Fly (1955); he proved his creative and intellectual versatility by writing essays, plays, poems, and novels as well. His collection of brief biographical sketches in National Portraits (1940) and a historical commentary, The Legend of the Nineties (1954), gathered almost as much attention as his more literary output.

The Passage, which won first prize in a Bulletin competition, represents—along with Men Are Human (1930) and a trilogy of novels dealing with Queensland life (Golconda, 1948, Seedtime, 1957, and The Big Fellow, 1959)—the peak of Palmer’s success with the novel.

In all of his fiction, Palmer sought to present an “Australia of the spirit.” Writers, he believed, “must be at one with the purposes and aspirations of the people and their hearts must beat in unison with them.” True to this belief, Palmer, after extensive world travel, settled back in his home country to write about its people and their lives. As a writer of his times, Palmer was torn between the emotion of the romantic 1890’s and the more self-conscious realism of later years. This conflict resulted in the idealistic, although brooding and laconic, protagonists of the later novels.

In The Passage, as well as the other Queensland novels, Palmer gives loving treatment to his image of the ordinary man. In commending such men as Lew to his readers, Palmer places himself squarely in the Lawson tradition.

Bibliography

Barnard, M. F., and F. S. P. Eldershaw. Essays on Australian Fiction, 1938.

Heseltine, H. P. Vance Palmer, 1970.

McKellar, J. “Vance Palmer as Novelist,” in Southerly. XV (1954), pp. 16-25.

Smith, Vivian. Vance and Nettie Palmer, 1975.