Fans of historical fiction will welcome Heavy as a Mountain, the gripping story of Toshi, a young Japanese fighter pilot who participates in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor before heading south a few months later for the devastating offensive against Darwin.
Inspired by the real life story of Sergeant Hajime Toyoshima, Japan’s first prisoner of war to be captured in Australia, the plot of Heavy as a Mountain closely follows history as Toshi crash lands on the Northern Territory’s Melville Island, where he is captured by a local islander. Giving a false name to avoid the inconceivable shame his family would experience if they knew he’d been taken prisoner, Toshi eventually finds himself incarcerated in the Cowra POW Camp, the biggest in Australia. In August 1944, he blew the bugle that signalled the biggest and bloodiest POW breakout of World War II, in which 241 Japanese prisoners and four Australians died.
Through his years imprisoned in Australia, Toshi must contend not only with immense language and cultural differences, but also with his monumental shame as a POW and the loyalty he still feels towards the Emperor and Japanese military code which taught him that “duty is as heavy as a mountain but death as light as a feather”. Simultaneously, he pines for Sachiko, the bride he married soon before the War, who had sworn to him that she would not go on living if he died and did not return to her. What had become of her? Even if he were to survive the War, how could he ever return to her and to his family when they thought he had died a hero’s death?
Bookshop and library shelves are filled with WWII stories of pilots and their exploits, but it is the Japanese perspective and narration with Toshi’s devotion to tradition that makes Heavy as a Mountain stand out from other such stories. It also gives the reader fascinating insight into the mind of a Japanese soldier, as well as into the shocking Cowra breakout.
With just the right balance of battle narrative, love story, history, cultural clash and psychological trauma, Vincent Connolly is to be congratulated for his contribution to the canon of WWII fiction.
—Heavy as a Mountain by Vincent Connolly (Booktopia Editions) is out now.
Heavy as a Mountain
A WWII Japanese airman in the two greatest battles fought on Australian soil, shamed by his capture, faces a dilemma – uphold the honour of his family or risk the life of his young wife?
When a young Japanese fighter pilot is shot down and captured in the 1942 Darwin bombing, he knows in his heart he should be dead. Duty is heavy as a mountain, death as light as a feather. That’s the Military Code and it means fight to the death, never surrender or you’ll bring a bitter shame on yourself and family...
Booktopia Editions: March to May Round-Up!
Comments
No comments