RIP Colleen McCullough

The Herald reports:

Colleen McCullough, the internationally famous Australian author, has died in hospital on Norfolk Island. She was 77.

McCullough worked as a neuroscientist in the United States before turning to writing full-time. The Thorn Birds, a romantic Australian saga published in 1977, became a worldwide bestseller and a popular mini-series in 1983.

I’ve read The Thorn Birds half a dozen times. McCullough writes with such detail and vividness that it is engrossing. The link to NZ perhaps helped a bit, but it is more her ability to tell such a captivating story where you get so caught up in what happens the characters – especially Ralph and Meggie.

The mini-series version was worthy of the book. Richard Chamberlain was perfect as Father Ralph. Such a good story of love vs ambition.

Her 25 novels included a deeply researched series set in Ancient Rome, which won her the admiration of readers including former NSW Premier Bob Carr and Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives.

Her seven part Masters of Rome series is directly responsible for my interest in classics and Rome. She brought Rome’s life, culture, politics and wars to life in an incredible way. Since I read them, I have gone on to read probably three dozen biographies of Caesar, Sulla, Augustus etc plus several classical texts and scores of other historical fiction set in Rome.

Her historical fiction in Rome was so accurate she was granted an honorary PhD from Macquarie University for it. While she got me onto other Roman historical fiction such as Conn Iggulden, I found most other books set in that era inadequate as it did not have McCullough’s near perfect historical accuracy.  Robert Harris is very good also.

I can’t think of an author who has had as much impact on my life in terms of what I read.

McCullough was born in Wellington, but moved to Australia as a child NSW, and her mother was a Kiwi. Her passing is a great loss to literature.