The heroine of [A Town Like Alice] is Jean Paget, an English typist who is captured, together with some 40 other women and children, by the Japanese in Malaya. They are forced to march aimlessly, month after month, from one place to another. Many of them die. At last, under Jean's leadership, they settle at a Malay village and work in the ricefields…. The second half of the book is about Jean's experiences in Australia, where she goes in search of Joe Harmon, the lorry-driver who helped her and the women on the march and was—literally—crucified by the Japanese for doing so. She finds that Joe has gone to England in search of her; while waiting for him to return, she plans various schemes for improving the amenities of the dreary Queensland back-blocks township, all of which, by means of a legacy, she is able to put...