Flanagan also illustrates the experiences of the Japanese officers as they grapple with notions of duty and honor, even as they inflict torture and misery on the prisoners in service to the Empire. The suffering of the POWs is shown in great detail as they struggle to build the railroad.

A gas explosion has destroyed the hotel his uncle owned, and Ella presumes Amy to be among the dead. While Dorrigo is in the camp, he receives a letter from Ella with a newspaper clipping. They have an affair for the summer before he leaves for the war, and it is the memory of Amy that sustains him through much of his time in the camps. Later he will learn that she is married to his uncle Keith. Before leaving for the war, he meets a woman named Amy in a bookstore. He is married to a woman named Ella but carries on constant affairs.

Dorrigo would survive the camp but then go on to become a famous surgeon and the subject of documentaries about his perseverance in the camp.ĭorrigo believes himself to be a fraud and a bad man. The narrative structure jumps back and forth between present and future, alternating between Dorrigo’s experiences in the camp and his struggles as a modern-day man who is grappling with fame. Dorrigo is an Australian man who enlists in the war, and the Japanese soon take him as a prisoner of war. Although the novel has many characters-even minor characters occasionally receive their own chapter-it focuses on the story of Dorrigo Evans.

Deep road to the narrow north