My four stars are for the first half of the novel. Two stars for the second.
This is a book of two halves. The first half, set in Malaya during the Japanese occupation is both horrifying and engrossing. The second half, set in Australia six years after the end of the war, is slow and tedious. This makes it a very difficult book to review. I’m glad I read it, as it is considered an Australian classic, but I felt terribly let down by the second half.

As a young English woman working in Malaya, Jean Paget’s life is shattered with the outbreak of World War 2 and the Japanese occupation. Together with other English women and children she is force marched for hundreds of miles. As she quietly recalls to Noel Strachan (her lawyer in London after the war) ‘People who spent the war in prison camps have written a lot of books about what a bad time they had. They don’t know what it was like, not being in a camp.’ When Jean meets Australian prisoner, Joe Harman, there is an instant attraction. What happens to Joe, after he steals food from the Japanese for Jean and her group, is horrific. Jean believes that Joe dies as a result of the torture meted out by the Japanese. She survives the war and returns to a quiet life as a secretary in London. When she inherits a large sum of money from her uncle, she travels back to the village in Malaya where she and the group’s survivors stayed for the last years of the war. As a sign of gratitude she arranges the installation of a well in the heart of the village. When she discovers that Joe survived and returned home, she decides to go to Australia to see him. This is were the book starts to lose momentum.

Jean discovers that she has a strong entrepreneurial drive and quickly starts to change the outlook for Willstown in Queensland where Joe’s property is located. The book spends a lot of time describing how she creates jobs and industry, helping the town to prosper. I found this all quite tedious and started to skim the minute details which lent nothing to the narrative. The casual racism practiced by everyone is, by modern standards, deplorable. Written in 1950, Shute reveals how white Australia treated the indigenous population - it makes for uncomfortable reading. Segregation was practiced and constant references to ‘boongs’ and ‘lubras’ makes the reader appreciate how far we have come since then (although not nearly far enough). The conservatism of a small country town is as stifling as the constant heat. Jean and Joe must be seen to practice great self-control before they marry - or Jean would be considered a loose woman and ostracised by the community; ‘As usual they drove a little way out of town and stopped for an exchange of mutual esteem.’ i.e. lots of kissing and cuddling! However, the book also highlights how supportive small town communities are, particularly in an emergency.

I found Shute’s writing style flat; others will argue that he is easy to read. For me, he goes into too much detail about nothing in particular and I found it hard going to finish the book. It ends with a whimper. That being said, Jean and Joe are memorable characters, and A Town like Alice is a quick and easy read.