Blood is strong

“Blood is strong” is a recurring expression about family attachment in the novel, spoken in one scene and recalled in another. Its meaning emerges through the contrast between Lucas keeping vigil beside his dying mother, Barbara, and Edwina preparing to travel to Australia to reunite with Rowena: blood ties endure, but they do not erase grief or distance.

Meaning and Form

The phrase is plain and declarative, presenting kinship as a force rather than an argument. When Edwina returns to it, she extends the image: “Blood, decides Edwina, is strong and it pulls like the tide.” The addition makes attachment feel like a persistent pull, something that can draw separated relatives toward one another without guaranteeing when or how reunion will happen.

Lucas and Barbara

At Barbara’s bedside, Lucas places the album on her blankets, sprays Diorissimo around her pillow, and takes her hand. He imagines her in a sunlit moment from the family past, when she is on the patio at River Walk and he is a boy home for the summer, playing cricket with his father. Against the knowledge that nothing more can be done for her, the reflection “Blood is strong” names the bond that remains: Barbara is the only relative Lucas has left, and he allows that she may have loved him too much, perhaps as mothers do.

Edwina and Rowena

Later, Edwina is preparing for a journey to Australia and checking her travel essentials each night. She decides to add a photograph, teeth, rings, and a matchbox of hair to her checklist; she will also take an old, battered box, which she recognizes as the only thing she has left that belonged to her mother. In this scene, the expression accompanies her hope of reunion with Rowena and the weight of what she carries from the past. The two moments give the phrase different inflections: for Lucas, it is spoken beside an impending loss; for Edwina, it becomes an image of family ties pulling across distance.