While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result.Īfter the war, Jean tracks Joe down in Australia and together they begin to dream of surmounting the past and transforming his one-horse outback town into a thriving community like Alice Springs. When she is captured she joins a group of other European women and children whom the Japanese force to march for miles through the jungle - an experience that leads to the deaths of many.ĭue to her courageous spirit and ability to speak Malay, Jean takes on the role of leader of the sorry gaggle of prisoners and many end up owing their lives to her indomitable spirit. A Town Like Alice is a romance novel by Nevil Shute, published in 1950 when Shute had newly settled in Australia. The level and depth of his writing in Alice shows that he was indeed learning to draw upon his own experiences to create critically acclaimed works. Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute Publisher Edito-Service, Geneva 1970 Red Faux Leather Hardback, 311 pp Original Illustrations by Geoffrey Plant Size. A Town Like Alice appears to be a war novel on the surface, being published in 1950, but it was written when he was presumably doing some traveling in southeast Asia and Australia. 'Probably more people have shed tears over the last page of A Town Like Alice than about any other novel in the English language. Eight hundred women and children begin a twelve-hundred-mile journey on foot across Japanese-occupied Malaya. 'Probably more people have shed tears over the last page of A Town Like Alice than about any other novel in the English language. A Town like Alice audiobook, by Nevil Shute.

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