"Happy families are all alike," wrote Tolstoy at the beginning of Anna Karenina, "but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."…

At the beginning of The Thorn Birds, its author, too, establishes firmly that unhappiness is to follow, though she lures us with the promise of at least one good time as well. She recounts a little parable, the legend of a bird that sings just once in its short life before proceeding to impale itself on the longest, sharpest thorn it can find: "For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain."

It all sounds promisingly dreadful, if a little corny (rhymes with thorny) … [but] I am here to testify that The Thorn Birds is a success both in terms of unhappiness and of uniqueness.

It is set in Australia, which, just for starters, is a change. I had thought that the...