Death of a Coast Watcher by Anthony English

 

In 1943 Hugh Rand was put on Bougainville to act as a coast watcher reporting back to Australia on Japanese shipping movements; however, before he was able to make any reports he was caught and executed. This is the basis of a story which is an intense study into many aspects of humanity: obsession, infidelity, fear, cultural clashes, mental illness and the shattering effects of misinterpretation.

The story moves from Bougainville to the Gilbert Islands, to Melbourne to Japan. The first section which is through Hugh Rand’s eyes of his last days is Hemingway-like in its quite brutal honesty.  In the following section those same days are interpreted clearly, simply and sadly in the 1971 diaries of Bos Simeon who was a young girl on Bougainville at the same time.  Peter Millar, formerly a district officer on Bougainville and now in the Gilberts is obsessed with Hugh Rand and has hounded Bos Simeon to tell him what she remembers. Peter’s obsession has caused a rift with his wife, Charlotte.

Five years later Charlotte, herself now determined to find the truth behind Hugh Rand’s execution, is in Japan. This part of the story covers a different cultural clash, that of east and west. 

I can’t possibly do this book justice; I feel loosely connected to the time and place of the story, my father having served in Z Special Force in Borneo in the war against Japan; and myself and my husband having lived in Papua New Guinea. Anthony English’s writing is superb: intelligent and powerful. He belongs to the ranks of David Malouf and Alex Miller.

I recommend this book to all Australians and to all lovers of good fiction.

Published by Monsoon Books Ltd