The Thorn Birds is the saga of the Clearys, primarily of Fee Cleary and her daughter Meggie. It is also the story of an ambitious Catholic priest, Ralph de Bricassart…. And it is, first and last, the story of Drogheda, this book's Tara. Land-in-the-blood is a major and vivid theme; it works here, it is not obnoxious.

The novel opens—and it opens slowly—in New Zealand in 1915, then switches to the ranch in New South Wales that the Clearys make their home. It's a setting the author knows in detail and describes with considerable force….

The plot creaks at times, and McCullough isn't above exploiting coincidence…. But one marvels much more than minds. McCullough does make her characters and their concerns come alive; she gives them (the leads particularly, and Ralph most of all) intelligence and complexity and dimension. Even the minor characters are not dull.

What...