Lancewood
How can one man stand up against against the will of his own people and refuse to fight in a war he doesn’t believe in? What sort of courage does it take to refuse to become one more brave soldier going off to war?
Or is Gerry’s anti-war attitude just a selfish desire to continue his comfortable life with his girl-friend, his leftist poetry-readings and his botanical research?
Set in New Zealand and Italy during World War ll, this novel portrays the anxieties and dilemma for a man who is conscripted to fight in a war he doesn’t believe in. And when he is conscripted, Gerry Cook realises he is not heroic enough to refuse the call-up. Gerry’s resolution of his dilemma is as clear as it is shocking.
The intensely local setting of Lancewood portrays a very ordinary man and woman confronting universal questions of duty and love, honour and freedom.
In Alan Marshall’s first novel, he provides a perspective on war, in which rebellion against authority is the individual’s main defence.
1999, 210pp
Paperback, 215 x 138 mm
ISBN 0 9585805 1 0
Fiction, 1st Edition
RRP $aud 20.95
ISBN-13 978
The Author
Born in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, Alan Marshall dropped out of high school to travel. He gained his BSc (Hons) from the University of Wolverhampton in England, his M.Phil from Massey University in New Zealand, and completed his doctorate at the University of Wollongong, New south Wales. Alan currently lives in Slovakia.
Lancewood is Alan’s first novel.