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Absolutely Revolting
Fiction

After Darkness by Christine Piper

by Laurie Steed •
September 2014, no. 364

After Darkness by Christine Piper

Allen & Unwin, $27.99 pb, 297 pp

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

Australia’s history is chequered at best. For every story of military heroism, there is one of discomfiting prejudice. So it is with Christine Piper’s After Darkness, which explores Australian history from the point of view of a Japanese doctor, Tomakazu Ibaraki, arrested as a national threat while in Broome, and sent to the Loveday internment camps in regional South Australia.

 


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After Darkness by Christine Piper

Allen & Unwin, $27.99 pb, 297 pp

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

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Comments

Karen Brown
Sunday, 14 September 2014 14:30
Having recently been steeped in WWII stories - Richard Flanagan's novel, Weary Dunlop's biography - and movies such as Paradise Road and The Railway Man, all describing Japanese atrocities, Piper's novel, while describing the ultimate atrocities, also shows the human frailty that allows such things to happen. I felt conflicted by feeling sorry for her flawed but ultimately heroic character, Dr Ibaraki, but was won over by her insightful writing. The novel adds an extra human dimension to Piper's Calibre-winning essay on the same subject. I'll be recommending it widely.

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