β Scribed by Shors, John
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Shors' sophomore effort (following Beneath a Marble Sky), set on an island in the South Pacific during three weeks in 1942, features achingly lyrical prose, even in depicting the horrors of war. After a U.S. hospital ship is torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese, a handful of survivors struggle for survival on a remote island. They include the captain and an officer; a Japanese prisoner, Akira, and two ship's nurses he saved (one of them the captain's wife); and the ship's engineer, who saves a Fijian stowaway, Ratu. Akira, a college professor pressed into service, is haunted by what he saw, did, and didn't do at Nanking. Jake, the engineer, is a black farmer who sees in Ratu the son he never had. Ratu adds a colorful combination of winsome bravado, humor and childish fear; each main character is similarly well-rounded, excepting the single-minded traitor among them, unsuspected by his fellow castaways. Shors pays satisfying attention to class and race dynamics, as well as the tension between wartime enemies. The survivors' dignity, quiet strength and fellowship make this a magical read.
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Itβs the fall of 1942, and the U.S. hospital ship Benevolence is cruising the waters of the South Pacific when it is torpedoed by the Japanese. Only nine people survive, and they eventually wash up on an island: the captain Joshua, and his wife, Isabelle, a nurse; Isabelleβs sister Annie and a woman named Scarlet, both nurses; Ratu, a teenage Fijian stowaway; Jake, a black engineer; Nathan and Roger, two officers; and Akira, a wounded Japanese soldier. The group knows itβs only a matter of time before the Japanese war machine reaches their shores, so they valiantly prepare for battle. As they do so, each man and woman struggles with his or her own personal demons. Add to that Annieβs fascination with Akira, and the fact that one survivor is secretly radioing the Japanese from deep in the jungle. Following his well-received debut, Beneath a Marble Sky (2004), Shorsβ second novel is an astounding work. Poetic and cinematic as it illuminates the dark corners of human behavior, it is destined to be this decadeβs The English Patient (1992). --Hilary Hatton
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