A ray of hope for the dispossessed.(Billy's Tree)(Book review)

Nicholas Kyriacos. Billy's Tree. Melbourne: Scribe, 2006. 339 pp. A$32.95. ISBN 1-920769-77-3

The melting pot metaphor is more often applied to the population of the United States than to the Australian population; however, in placing the characters of Billy's Tree in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Redfern, Nicholas Kyriacos has provided a glimpse into a truly Australian melting pot community made up of Greek and Lebanese migrants, working class Aussie battlers, and itinerant Aborigines. All of them have lost something: the immigrants have lost touch with their cultural heritage; the Aussie battlers have experienced shame instead of love and understanding in their family relationships, and the Aborigines have suffered most of all in having been dispossessed of their land, their culture, their children, and their lives. In Billy's Tree significant developments in these characters' lives are played out against the 1999 …