Shame and the Captives (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic) - Hardcover

Keneally, Thomas

3.3

621 ratings by Goodreads

9781410476692: Shame and the Captives (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410476693 ISBN 13: 9781410476692

Publisher: Thorndike Pr, 2015

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Based on true events, this beautifully rendered novel from the author of "Schindler's List" and "The Daughters of Mars" brilliantly explores a World War II prison camp, where Japanese prisoners resolve to take drastic action to wipe away their shame.
Alice is a young woman living on her father-in-law's farm on the edge of an Australian country town, while her husband is held prisoner in Europe. When Giancarlo, an Italian anarchist at the prisoner-of-war camp down the road, is assigned to work on the farm, she hopes that being kind to him will somehow influence her husband's treatment. What she doesn't anticipate is how dramatically Giancarlo will expand her outlook and self-knowledge.
But what most challenges Alice and her fellow townspeople is the utter foreignness of the thousand-plus Japanese inmates and their culture, which the camp commanders fatally misread. Mortified by being taken alive in battle and preferring a violent death to the shame of living, they plan an outbreak, to shattering and far-reaching effects on all the citizens around them.
In a career spanning half a century, Thomas Keneally has proved a master at exploring ordinary lives caught up in extraordinary events. With this profoundly gripping and thought-provoking novel, inspired by a notorious incident in New South Wales in 1944, he once again shows why he is celebrated as a writer who "looks into the heart of the human condition with a piercing intelligence that few can match" ("Sunday Telegraph").

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Review:

Keneally skilfully weighs broad cultural questions against the concerns of the soldiers and community . . . In a supremely dramatic ending, it is impossible to guess the fate of any of the characters. (Mail on Sunday)

His writing is remarkably evocative, whether he is describing everyday occurrences or characters . . . we gain an insight into the minds of the Japanese so even if we don't empathise with their desire for a glorious death, we can comprehend it. (Independent on Sunday)

A story very suited to Keneally's talent for letting his imagination play on real-life events. The narrative is gripping, slow-moving but absorbing for the first half and more of the novel, then fast-moving, exciting and appalling. (Scotsman)

Keneally's fine novel gives us insight into how, over time (as in Australia itself), imprisonment, even brutal imprisonment, can evolve into something worthy of the human race. (The Times)

Readers wondering whether there is anything new to be said about the world wars of the twentieth century can pick up one of Keneally's books for a renewed sense of how it felt to live through those terrifying times . . . [he] makes the reader sympathise with the mindset of the prisoners, having rooted out yet another unfamiliar and powerful example of the madness of war. (Sunday Express)

Shame and the Captives suggests that Keneally's late period is as rich as any other in his fifty-year career . . . Keneally's elegant classicism miniaturises grand narratives - here the war in the Pacific - without sacrificing subtlety . . . Shame and the Captives is sobering, horrifying, humane and even strangely uplifting. (Literary Review)

A tremendously accomplished novel, rich in character, detail and incident. It is the work of a master novelist (Sunday Business Post, Ireland)

As he states in his introduction: "Fiction has always tried to tell the truth by telling lies." On the evidence of this book, and at seventy-eight years of age, Keneally remains one of the most compelling liars on the planet. (Guardian)

Book Description:

A dramatic and fascinating novel based on a notorious breakout by Japanese prisoners from an Australian POW camp in 1944, encapsulating the impact of war on ordinary lives.

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