A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jean Paget comes into a great deal of money … but it’s held in trust for her until she turns 35. Her trustee is solicitor Noel Strachan, who is also the book’s narrator. It’s not hard to tell that, despite the significant difference in age, Noel is in love with Jean, who is smart, organized, and kind.
Through Noel, we learn about how Jean was on what amounted to a death march in Malaya (this is based on actual events in Sumatra, and in which one of author Nevil Shute’s friends was involved). When Jean learns about this inheritance, she wants to go back to Malaya to dig a well for some villagers there, in memory of an Australian stockman named Joe Harman. Joe was also a POW, and he risked his life to steal food for the women in Jean’s group.
Well, not too shockingly, we learn that Joe is still alive over the course of the book … and that he had believed Jean to be a married woman. So, through a variety of stumbles, Jean and Joe wind up in Australia together. Once that happens, there are even more adventures.
This book was published in 1950, just a few short years after the Japanese invasion of Sumatra. It’s not historical fiction; it was a contemporary work. I had to keep this in front of me as I read the very casual racism used in reference to Japanese and Australian indigenous peoples. This is not how most people find it appropriate to speak or behave these days (there are, of course, exceptions …). It was jarring, for certain.
However, if one keeps in mind that this book is a product of its time, it really is an amazing tale of perseverance, and a finely crafted romance novel to boot. Recommended.
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So, this just happened. I’m right next to the amazing John Scalzi in the listing, so that’s pretty cool, too.
Hi, everyone. I’m feeling quite a bit better, but still coughing a lot. I’m staying home from a lot of social obligations, and possibly even a concert tomorrow, because I don’t want to distract people around me with my barking!