Cloudstreet

In 1940s Australia, a girl named Rose Pickles gets the feeling that something terrible is about to happen. Her brothers, Ted and Chub, are playing on the seashore at sunset, and she calls for them to come inside. She doesn’t think she can take any more bad luck, as her family has already lost their home in the past year and they now live in a pub owned by her uncle Joel. But she nonetheless feels like an unfortunate event is imminent, and she recalls how her father is usually the one who feels dark premonitions like this. She looks out at the darkening sea and wonders if he’s getting a bad feeling as well.

The following morning, Rose’s father, Sam Pickles, wakes up in his dormitory hut and feels what he calls “the Shifty Shadow of God” lurking. This shadow is how he visualizes the arrival of good or bad luck, which he can feel in his body like instinct or a sixth sense. Usually when he senses the Shifty Shadow, he knows better than to get out of bed until he feels that it’s passed him by. But today, he assumes that the strange luck belongs to someone else, and he goes about his morning as usual. He works on an island where he and his coworkers mine guano for phosphate.

Sam dwells on how he somehow noticed the smell of his long-dead father Merv after waking up this morning. Merv was a water diviner, finding water sources using nothing but a simple dowsing rod. He also gambled on horses, and this is one pastime that Sam still holds onto. While he never became a jockey like his father wanted him to be, Sam still gambles and pays close attention to the Shifty Shadow, constantly on the lookout for signs of his luck changing. Despite this, he’s been on a losing streak for a while, and his current job on the island is a consequence of recently losing everything he owned through gambling.

As he starts the work day, Sam reflects on how depressing and sometimes hellish this island is. He tries to ignore the whining voice of his coworker Nobby, who makes the dull work duller with his unpleasant attitude. Sam starts a winch to summon an empty barge, staring into the water and fantasizing about fishing and relaxing instead. These thoughts distract him long enough for the winch cable to catch his glove and drag his fingers into the crushing cogs. Sam screams as he loses his hand entirely; his fingers fall to the deck before his eyes.

Sam is flown away on a Catalina plane, where two men play cards on his chest and tell him not to worry. After he’s taken to the hospital, Rose rushes home to the pub from school to fetch her mother, Dolly Pickles. Rose hears no reply when she knocks on Dolly’s door, but she hears a gasp from the other side. Behind the closed door, Dolly is having sex with the Catalina pilot who brought her husband back and broke the bad news. Not knowing what she’s hearing and forcing herself to toughen up, Rose rushes off to the hospital without fetching her mother or her brothers. She tells herself that they can find their own way.

Dolly Pickles attracts some attention from strangers on her way to the hospital; she relishes the fact that everyone in town has always considered her to be a beautiful woman. Her mood darkens when she reaches Sam in the hospital and sees that he's lost his right hand: his working hand. Rose snaps at her mother and brothers for their callous attitude about the incident, and she stays by Sam’s bedside after everyone else leaves. She reflects on how she loves her father despite his foolish decisions and terrible luck, but she’s still discouraged by how everything in their lives seems to be falling apart at the seams.

Everyone in the pub talks about the incredible bad luck the Pickles family seems to experience. The only lucky person in the family seems to be Sam’s brother Joel, who bought the pub and named it after Eurythmic, the racehorse he had very successfully gambled on years ago. Meanwhile, Sam glumly recovers in the hospital and tries to come to terms with his missing hand. One day, he receives a package from his coworkers, containing a jar with his severed fingers in it, labeled: “Sam’s Pickles.” Sam laughs at the sight, equally amused and miserable.

Dolly continues to see the Catalina pilot until Sam finally comes home from the hospital. She keeps herself busy to distract herself from the sight of her newly disabled husband, and she starts to resent the disbelieving looks that the locals give her. Sam doesn’t receive any worker’s compensation, so the Pickles don’t make any money. Dolly helps around the pub to let Joel know she’s grateful for him letting them live there. Rose tries to comfort her father, but Sam is set on the idea that he’ll always be unlucky, just like his father.

Eventually, with some urging from Joel, Sam decides to start getting outside and trying to carry on with his life despite his dismemberment. He figures that fishing is a good place to start, and he gradually learns to use a fishing pole with one hand. He and Joel fish by the sea one evening and Sam feels the Shifty Shadow lurking again. He assumes that the strange luck has its sights on Joel, who’s always had good fortune, so Sam lets himself relax and enjoy the evening. But after reeling in a massive fish in a moment of childlike excitement, Joel has a sudden heart attack and dies on the sand before Sam’s eyes. Without Joel around to let them live in the pub, Sam knows that the Pickles will now be broke and homeless.