MICHAEL Thornton, like so many thousands before him, hit the road to become a jackaroo.

It is a historical, even romantic, role in the Australian pantheon.

  • Jackaroo: A memoir, by Michael Thornton. Viking, rrp $32.95

Until you get on the farm and find out what it really means.

Dogsbody is a position to which many jackaroos - and jillaroos - aspire as they quickly discover their life on the land is as the lowest of the low.

Thornton, himself a city boy, faced the same issues and initiation.

But to a large degree he has failed to capture any of it in this account of young boy who makes good.

Despite the best efforts of his publisher's promotional lines, such as from choirboy to cowboy and painting him as a battler from a tough childhood background, it falls flat.

For here is a tough childhood, which still saw Thornton make it through the world of the private school boy.

And have English relatives who own woollen mills in Bradford, where he goes for 12 months.

Or so hard up that his mother and sister cannot afford to make the trip with him.

Yes, it was tragic when Thornton lost his father to alcoholism while he was still a youngster, but that did not see him and his mother turfed onto the street by some evil landlord.

Early on he lands a job at Malcolm Fraser's Western District property Nareen.

Boy, does Mum have something to brag about when the bridge fours resume in the New Year.