‘A Town Like Alice’ by Neville Shute

This was another enjoyable read. This summer marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Shute’s classic novel ‘A Town Like Alice’ in 1950. It was hugely popular in its day and it is not hard to see why. It is engaging and charming, as well as being somewhat original in various ways. The first half of the book is essentially an epic love story that spans the globe. A British woman and an Australian man meet quite briefly in awful circumstances in Japanese-occupied Malaya during the Second World War. They develop a connection that neither is able to shake off and each goes looking for the other. However, this is no conventional romantic novel, because the narrative switches direction in the second half to focus on the post-war economic development of a small outback settlement in Queensland called Willstown. The aim is to turn it into somewhere like Alice Springs, hence the title ‘A Town Like Alice’. I enjoyed it a lot because of this additional element that complements the romance. It is also notable, and for this reason possibly unfashionable today, because of the absence of villains. Everyone, aside from the odd Japanese soldier early on in the book, is basically a good person doing his or her best. Their struggles are against nature and circumstances rather than other human beings. For me that gave it a touch of realism that was refreshing. I also liked the absence of swearing and bad behaviour generally. Everyone is polite, professional and thoughtful. “My word” is as strong as the language gets.

The second original feature is that the story is narrated at one remove by a solicitor who for various reasons becomes intimately involved in the evolving story. We thus hear about it all from his perspective. At times this stretches credulity, when for example casual conversations are included between people in Australia that a London-based solicitor could not possibly be in apposition to recite verbatim. But this imperfection need to distract from the enjoyment of the book.

Neville Shute (1899 – 1960) was a British man who had two parallel careers as an author and as an aeronautical engineer. He emigrated to Australia with his family after the war, and these experiences all clearly informed the book. There are some musings on engineering included, but they add rather than detract on the whole. In fact there is quite a lot of factual material spliced about the narrative about all kinds of things including legal matters. The portrayal of aboriginal people grates to the modern mind, but is I am sure very typical of the way white Australians thought and acted at the time the story was written. There is an authenticity which serves to educate as well as entertain.

‘A Town Like Alice’ has at its heart is the most wonderful and impressive heroine in Jean Paget, based I understand on a real person. It is essentially her story and, like her, the book is a life enhancer and one that will stay with you for a long time after you have read it.