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Anthony English

Autor de Death of a Coast Watcher

1 Obra 3 Miembros 1 Reseña

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Death of a Coast Watcher (2020) 3 copias
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Death of a Coast Watcher por Anthony English
One of the pleasures of a blog like mine is that sometimes there is an opportunity to introduce a really fine work of fiction to readers who might otherwise never get to hear about it. The debut novel Death of a Coast Watcher by Australian author Anthony English has been positively reviewed by The Asian Review of Books but it's published by a small indie publisher in the UK which doesn't have much exposure here in Australia.

This is the blurb:
In 1943 on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, a Japanese officer beheads Hugh Rand, an Australian spy — a coast watcher. The spectators include villagers he terrorised as his mind frayed under the stress of pursuit by soldiers and their hounds. Rand’s influence transcends his death. For decades he plagues characters who strive to cope with him and one another in New Guinea, the Gilbert Islands, Australia and Japan. Who misperceives? Lies? Self-destructs? Suffers? Loves? The layers unfold as the author entices us through cultural, historical and intellectual curtains, deep into minds and relationships disturbed by the Pacific war and Rand’s legacy.


And this is the video (which I like because of the music):

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iolAG66cpcM[/embed]

What kind of man is willing to be despatched from Australia onto an island occupied by the Japanese in WW2, where the local people are possibly more loyal to the Japanese than to Australia? Australia had held the mandate for the Territory of New Guinea since the defeat of Germany in WW1 but there was no certainty that the locals were willing to risk their lives to enable an Australian coast-watcher to send radio reports about Japanese troop movements.

Such a man must surely be brave, and so he is in the shocking first chapter of Death of a Coast Watcher. Hugh Rand, formerly a colonial administrator on New Ireland but now landed covertly on Bougainville to monitor Japanese activity, initially arouses the reader's admiration for his courage under Japanese torture and for the manner of his beheading. Very soon, however, the reader is trapped into confronting a back story that shows him to be cruel, violent, racist and misogynistic. Charlotte Millar, whose husband in the 1970s is obsessed with Rand's story, reads a witness account and comes to this conclusion:
From Bos's encounters with him and her description of the execution, including the dynamics of the severed head, Charlotte now discerned a shortish, awkward man with sandy hair; his distinctive clothing tattered and stained; awful injuries and much blood. No voice or face but aspects of his individuality rammed into her brain, where he registered pride, intelligence, fortitude, fearlessness; and the personality of a psychopath to rival the Japanese officer and his dogs. (p.183)


To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/04/04/death-of-a-coast-watcher-by-anthony-english/… (más)
 
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anzlitlovers | Apr 4, 2021 |
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