Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

As this was the winner of the Man Booker prize this year, I'm sure it'll be on many people's Christmas lists. Although, I've only just started to read my way through the shortlist, I'm not convinced this would have been the winner for me.

The Plot: The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, was built by Japan during WWII using forced labour. Approximately 180,000 Asian civilians and 60,000 allied Prisoners of War worked on the railway. Hundreds of thousands of people died, due to starvation, and the brutal regime of the camps.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the account of a fictional Australian army doctor, Dorriago Evans, and his life before, during and after his experience on the Death Railway. Dorriago struggles to save the lives of the men under his care, as is forced by his captors to select the POWs to work on the railway each day. Throughout he is haunted by the memory of Amy, the wife of his uncle, who he had an affair with.

The novel is non-liner, showing the long reaching consequences of trauma, and the importance of happier memories in difficult circumstances.

Rating: 3.5/5
Full review after the jump:-

He kept looking for that piece of artery

"Dorrigo Evans kept steadily working on Jack's stump, his bare feet ankle-deep in the bloody mud below the makeshift bamboo operating table, his outer calm a strange thing he knew he preserved at the moments of greatest inner turmoil. He kept looking for that piece of artery, trying to find something in his work to hold on to, unconsciously clawing at the mud with his toes.

And finally he had it, and he worked with the utmost care and delicacy to make sure his work would hold and Jack lives, and when he was done and he lifted his head, he knew Jack had been dead for some minutes and no one had known how to tell him". 

- Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North