War, romance,
exotic locales, an inspiring protagonist: A Town Like Alice
pulls together many potent elements into a compelling read.
Young Englishwoman Jean Paget had been a Japanese prisoner in Malaya
during World War II. She was in a group of women and children marched
from place to place because the Japanese didn't know what to do with
them. They witnessed the horrific crucifixion of an Australian soldier
as punishment for stealing food for them. After hundreds of miles and
the deaths of half the group, Jean, their natural leader, received
permission for the survivors to stay in one village and help in the
rice paddy fields.
Back in England after the war, Jean receives an inheritance from a
great-uncle. She decides to use the money to build a
well in the Malayan village so that the women have a shorter trip to get
water. While in Mayala, she learns that the Australian soldier
survived his crucifixion, so she goes to Australia to search for him.
It's not giving away anything unexpected to say that the soldier, Joe
Harman, has been thinking about Jean, too. In fact, he's in England
trying to track her down. Their eventual reconnection and love affair
lead to
the final section of the book, when Jean's efforts and money turn an
outback post in Australia into "a town like Alice," a lively community
in the style of Alice Springs, where a woman would actually want to
live.
Jean Paget is an exceptional young woman. She embraces challenges
matter-of-factly without thinking of herself as extraordinary.
She not only enchants Joe Harman but also Noel Strachan, the
70-plus-year-old widowed lawyer who is trustee of the inheritance and
the narrator of the story.
Nevil Shute, an English author who resettled in Australia, based Jean
Paget on a real character who had survived a Japanese death march.
Shute changed the prisoners from Dutch to English, and the location
from Sumatra to Malaya. Joe Harman also had a real-life model who was
an Australian veteran of the Malayan campaign and had survived a
crucifixion by Japanese soldiers.
.
Home
My
reviews
My
friends' reviews