at Changi … was shocked to the point of silence and tears.

… our own Black Jack Galleghan, the Iron Commander of the A.I.F. Our emaciated, cadaverous bodies were covered in rags, we were all barefooted with bandages covering our ulcers and we were almost all rotten with malaria and beri beri. The Sunday Times calls The Narrow Road to the Deep North, “devastatingly beautiful” while A.C Grayling, Man Booker Prize Judge 2014 states “Some years, very good books win the Man Booker Prize but this year a masterpiece has won it.” I often ignore these quotes, confident in the knowledge that I can work out the worth and merit of a book without assistance. Review: This is the one time when you should believe the praise that streams over the cover of a book. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho’s travel journal, The Narrow Road To The Deep North is about the impossibility of love. Richard Flanagan’s story - of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle’s wife - journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel, from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival, from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. What would you do if you saw the love of your life, whom you thought dead for the last quarter of a century, walking towards you? Summary: A novel of the cruelty of war, and tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.

From the narrow road to the deep north