| Title | A Town Like Alice |
| Author | Nevil Shute |
| Copyright | 1950 |
| Type | Historical Fiction |
| Length | 359 pages(?) See note |
| Finished Reading | May 8, 2024 |
| Ratings | Personal: 4 stars Amazon: 4.4 stars (8,064 ratings) GoodReads: 4.2 stars (58,611 ratings) |
I’m not gong to bother worrying about spoilers since this book is almost 75 years old. I loved the 1981 Masterpiece Theater adaptation of this Nevil Shute novel; so when I saw it in the virtual bookstore alongside On the Beach I added it to my virtual bookshelf. Jean Paget is part of a group of British citizens in Malaya in the early days of World War II who are surprised and captured by Japanese soldiers. Men and women are separated and we follow the travails of the women and children as they are marched from place to place on the Malaysian peninsula to be imprisoned; however, none of the officers of the various camps want to be burdened by taking care of women and children. At one point they are assisted by Joe Harmon, an Australian prisoner of war, who is tortured and killed for rendering that aid. Eventually the women and children are allowed to live in a village with the indigenous people and spend the remainder of the war there. The second half of the novel takes place in England where Jean lives after the war. She inherits some money and uses some of it to build a well for the women of the village they lived in. There she learns that Joe Harmon did not die. The two eventually meet up and she moves with him to a small ranching town in the Australian Outback. Jean builds up the small outpost into a town that rivals Alice Springs.
While the second half of the novel is quite interesting it is overshadowed by the drama of the womens’ march through Malaya. As we’ve learned through many books and movies the Japanese treated their prisoners much more harshly than did Americans. Nevil Shute lets us know in his concluding note
I expect to be accused of falsifying history, especially in regard to the march and death of the homeless women prisoners. I shall be told that nothing of the sort eve happened in Malaya, ant his is true. It happened in Sumatra. (Page 400)
This novel deserves another look almost 75 years after its initial publication. I found it to be a gritty depiction at life of civilians caught in the middle of World War II. The novel also shows the reality of Australian ranching life in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Jean is a strong woman character – a rarity for novels in the 1950s. She is the leader of the group of prisoners and we see how she stands up to the hardships of the lives and deaths of the women and children. Later, Jean shows she is made of tough stuff when she sets out on her own to build the well for the Malayan villagers who helped her and the others. She takes on another huge challenge building a town from almost nothing in the Australian Outback.
Even though most of my life has been lived in the pre-internet age, I take it for granted how difficult communication between continents was in the middle of the 20th century. Nevertheless, Jean and Joe worked through innumerable barriers to meet again and build a new life in Australia. This is a fast paced, enjoyable novel with a much happier ending than Shute’s On the Beach.
I tried to find the original Masterpiece Theater series on the various streaming services to no avail. Eventually I tried watching it on YouTube but the recording quality was poor. It must take a lot of work to process the TV shows of the pre-HD era into something watchable on our large screens today.
A couple of housekeeping notes.
- The page count. I read this on my Kobo Libra 2 where it clocks in at about 400 pages whereas the Kobo ebook site lists it as 368 pages. The Amazon page says the print edition is 230 pages. So, how long is it? It’s kind of like asking “How long is a piece of string.” Suffice it to say it is an engrossing and quick read.
- If you look on a modern map you won’t find a country of Malaya. It is now Malaysia, which became independent in 1957.
