A Town Like Alice, by Neville Shute

Picture: Amazon

In high school, I read On the Beach by Neville Shute. That chilling tale presaged the end of the world through nuclear war and put me off reading any more of this author's work.

The fault was not in his writing; I still carry traces of the image from that story of people planting crops they knew they would never harvest. The courage of these people was impressive, but the story line was just too chilling. For this reason, I never gave Shute's work another chance. That is, until I discovered A Town Like Alice.

When I read On the Beach, the Cold War was in full swing and the Cuban Missile crisis was a recent memory. In school, we discussed the imminent possibility of nuclear war. We feared we would never even have the chance to grow up. And I more or less forgot about Neville Shute.

Last month at the Surrey International Writers' Conference, I was as always, inspired to read and write. In one workshop, both presenters recommended A Town Like Alice, by Neville Shute.

I'd heard the title, and knew it had been made into a movie. Surprised to learn it was a love story with a hopeful ending, I let curiosity get the best of me; I decided to give Neville Shute a chance to make a different kind of impression.

I was glad I did. Originally published in 1950, the novel stands not only as a well-told story, but as a historic document portraying the mentality of the post-war world, which now seems not only politically incorrect but positively antiquated.

The British Empire in Malaya, the rigid construction of class and the casual acceptance of the colour bar in Australia between the whites and "Abos" can cause a contemporary reader to cringe. Yet to fault the book for these reflections of a past that was all too real would be unfair.

Shute gives a sympathetic portrayal of the poor Malayan villagers who help the women prisoners of war. He shows the humanity of their Japanese captors as well. In the Australian scenes, he bestows a poignant loneliness the character of Grace, an aboriginal woman whose neighbours are convinced, even though they don't associate with her, that her husband married her only due to the severe shortage of women in the remote town where they live.

Noel, the old lawyer through whose eyes the story is told, is a kind and sympathetic man who not only smooths the path of the young lovers, but recognizes his all-too-human weakness -- falling in love with someone young enough to be his daughter. Yet with forbearance and humour, he recognizes the futility of this, and manages to preserve his friendship with that remarkable young woman, Jean Paget.

Neville Shute was also ahead of his time in portraying a marriage in which this visionary woman controls her own money and career, and whose marriage to a husband very different from herself is a truly equal partnership. I had no trouble relating to the main characters, and found the book an enjoyable read.

A Town Like Alice was made into a film in 1956 and a TV mini-series in 1981. An interesting detail is that the 2009 Vintage paperback edition contains an Author's Note at the end, in which Shute affirms the historic realism of his story of the women prisoners of war, adding that this is the first time he has "turned to real life for an incident" for one of his novels.

He also praises a real woman, Mrs. Geysel, a survivor of that notorious 1200-mile forced march with her own baby and other women and children prisoners. The march took place not in Malaya, but on the island of Sumatra, and the real Mrs. Geisel was Dutch, while Shute's character is English.

The wording of his tribute to this "most gallant lady" tempts the reader to imagine there may be something of the author in the character of Noel, the aging widowed lawyer who helps Jean and her beloved lost and found Joe Harman so much.