Amidst the chaos of their Dad’s alcoholism, brothers Harry, Miles, and Joe Curren are subject to rampant abuse and neglect. As their father’s behavior grows increasingly erratic and their family structure deteriorates in the wake of their Mum and Uncle Nick’s deaths, the Curren brothers are forced to become one another’s support system, and they remain steadfastly loyal to one another. The infallible strength of their bond provides a level of solidarity and understanding that is unique to siblings, and the brothers are able to find solace in each other’s company even in the midst of traumatic circumstances. The deeply loyal brotherhood between Harry, Miles, and Joe reflects the inherent resilience of the human spirit in the face of cruelty, while also highlighting how some burdens cannot be shouldered alone. With the three brothers at its core, Past the Shallows shows how hardship can strengthen sibling bonds, and how this brotherhood is a crucial element of enduring life’s challenges.
Despite quintessential moments of conflict and sibling rivalry between Miles and Joe, Miles’s relationship with his older brother serves as an escape from his troubled home life and the forced drudgery of his job on the family fishing boat. Joe (who, at thirteen, moved out of Dad’s house to live with the boys’ Granddad) is concerned for his brothers’ wellbeing, and often takes Miles out to surf and fish in order to give his brother a temporary escape from his difficult life. These shared serene moments with his older brother are a respite for Miles, providing him with a sense of comfort and stability that he does not receive from Dad at home or at work on the boat. While family is not purely a force of good in the novel—after all, most of the brothers’ struggles stem from their father, an abusive alcoholic—the boys’ relationships with one another show how family can also serve as a lifeline in the midst of pain.
Since quality time with Joe is what buoys Miles in an otherwise heartbreaking life, he is resentful and afraid when his older brother builds a boat and plans on leaving Bruny Island to escape the painful reality of their disintegrated family. Although Joe is nineteen and it is ostensibly normal for him to leave home, the value Miles places on their brotherhood turns this act into a personal affront that threatens to destabilize Miles’s sense of security. Miles’s deep distress surrounding Joe’s departure speaks to how vital Joe’s brotherly friendship has been in keeping Miles afloat emotionally, highlighting the way that family bonds can be a balm for pain and suffering.
Similar to his brotherhood with Joe, Miles’s relationship with his younger brother, Harry, is in many ways characteristic of a typical bond between siblings. The abuse they both receive from Dad, however, creates a profound, unspoken loyalty between Miles and Harry that gives each of them a sense of purpose and a reason to persevere through their mistreatment. Though the youngest of the three brothers, Harry is mature beyond his years and often makes sweet gestures toward Miles such as buying him a goodie bag at the boat races, caring for him when he is sick, and even trying to defend him from Dad’s ire. While Miles is sometimes impatient and frustrated by Harry’s naïveté, his little brother’s thoughtful treatment of him is a nurturing presence that helps fill the void of Mum’s death and Dad’s neglect.
Miles returns the favor of Harry’s kindness, remaining loyal and protective of his little brother even under the looming threat of violence from Dad. After a particularly harrowing episode of drunken violence from Dad and his equally abusive friend Jeff, Miles tenderly packs a bag for Harry and leaves his little brother at his friend Stuart’s house (where he knows he will be safe) and returns home alone to face the brunt of Dad’s drunken wrath. Despite the abuse that the two younger Curren brothers continually face, their brotherly bond gives them the strength and resilience they need to endure their circumstances.
This strong bond of solidarity that Miles and Harry share culminates in Miles facing his phobia of the deep ocean to save Harry after Dad throws him overboard, a moment that parallels Miles’s childhood memory of Joe saving him when he fell in the river. Although he is unable to save Harry from drowning, this act is the ultimate display of Miles’s steadfast love, courage, and self-sacrifice as he risks his own life in an attempt to rescue his little brother. Although family is the cause of Harry and Miles’s hardship in this circumstance, as Dad is the one to throw Harry overboard, the brothers’ close familial bond remains a source of resilience and comfort for them both as they desperately try to stay alive in the freezing water.
The novel resists a clean ending, as brotherhood ultimately does not save the day and vanquish evil. Instead, the ending is steeped in both heartache and hope, reflecting the realistic complexity of family life. While Dad’s abusive nature wreaks havoc on the Curren family and eventually kills Harry, the unyielding loyalty between Miles and Joe is made even stronger by the tragedy of their little brother’s death. Miles and Joe’s brotherhood allows them to band together to continue the legacy of Harry’s kind spirit, overcome the painful memories of their traumatic upbringing, and ultimately break free of Bruny Island.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Brotherhood, Loyalty, and Hardship ThemeTracker
Brotherhood, Loyalty, and Hardship Quotes in Past the Shallows
Water that was always there. Always everywhere. The sound and the smell and the cold waves making Harry different. And it wasn’t just because he was the youngest. He knew the way he felt about the ocean would never leave him now. It would be there always, right inside him.
It was fully formed, more than half a yard long, maybe only days away from being born. It would have survived if Jeff had just let it go, let it slide off the back of the boat. It had made it this far, battling its siblings, killing and feeding off them. Waiting. It would have been born strong, ready to hunt, ready to fight.
But Harry stayed where he was. He stayed among the piles of Granddad’s things left on the lawn—all the things that were no longer needed, no longer useful—and he wished that Joe would stay.
He lived for this, for these moments when everything stops except your heart beating and time bends and ripples—moves past your eyes frame by frame and you feel beyond time and before time and no one can touch you.
And it nearly made Harry cry now, the way Miles’s eyelid was all purple and cut—the bruise on the side of his face coming up bad. Harry put his hand in his pocket and felt for the sock that held his leftover money. He pulled it out.
“You should take this,” he said. “You might need it.”
Miles shook his head. “You keep it,” he said and he tried to smile.
…Harry didn’t see him come back. There was just the backpack with some clothes left by the door of the trailer and inside, near the top, were some chocolates and the bright orange dart gun from his Bertie Beetle goodie bag.
Harry leaned his head back against the chair and thought that if Miles got lost, if Miles never came home, Harry’s insides would go wrong and they might never come right again. If Miles got lost.
…he looked so young and small, like no time had ever passed by since he was the baby in the room and Joe had told Miles to be nice to him and help Mum out. And Miles had thought he wouldn’t like it. But Harry had a way about him. A way that made you promise to take care of him.
But ultimately it wasn’t up to you. This ocean could hold you down for as long as it liked, and Miles knew it.
There was a black emptiness inside him and it was all that he could see. He tried to imagine a fire in the darkness, and at first it was just one blue flame too small to feel. But he willed it on, felt the first flicker of warmth as it grew. Then it raged, turned into a ball of fire, orange and red and hungry. It devoured his stomach, moved up to his lungs, his back. Moved into his heart. He shared it with Harry through his skin.
He had been drifting for a lifetime and his mind had lost its way. It was dissolving and he had forgotten about Harry, forgotten about all the things that came before. There was only this vastness, the swing of a giant pendulum—water receding then flooding back. And he was part of it. Part of the deep water, part of the waves. Part of the rocks and reefs along the shore.
He listened to Joe talk about all the places they would go, the tropical islands and clear warm water, the big bright lights of new cities. The free open space of ocean. And he knew that Joe was going to take him with him, now. Wherever he went. He leaned his head down against his brother’s shoulder. And he let himself cry.
Out past the shallows, past the sandy-bottomed bays, comes the dark water—black and cold and roaring. Rolling out an invisible path, a new line for them to follow.
To somewhere warm.
To somewhere new.
