THE GOMMOCK

About the Book

It is 1836. The Tregarthy family has emigrated from a Cornish mining village to the new colony of South Australia, where the lure of riches brings them to a huge copper fi nd in the Outback. “The gommock” is Yestin, dubbed “fool” by his wife Charlotte, whose constant gibe results not only in his moral imperfection, but in his impulsive, scandalous rejection of her. His own fate is foretold in his children’s favourite Cornish folk tale, and it overtakes him when he breaks his fellow miners’ code of loyalty and then leads him on to a bizarre triumph.

About the Author

Marie S. Jackman was born in Adelaide in 1929, a fi fth-generation child of Australian pioneers. She began a peripatetic life at the age of 12 as a Second World War camp follower. With her husband, Lloyd, and sometimes her sons, she has lived in England, Australia, Germany, and the USA. She received her B.A. in English at the Pennsylvania State University, taught in the composition program there, and began researching this novel. Her short story, Hour of the Black Widow, appeared in The Canberra Times in 1975.