People of the Pear Tree

by Rex Shelley

Book by Shelley, Rex

231 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2011

Reviews

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main characters in this book are from the mixed race citizens of Singapore, not the colonial British, not the invading Japanese, not the neighbouring or indigenous Malays or the various immigrants from India, it is about those who have no other country, whatever passport they hold.
In his time, Rex Shelley was a popular and quite highly regarded author. I can see why, this is a luxuriant book, exotic enough to titillate and interest the children of Empire stuck in grey Britain and well written enough to calm the critics. He has fallen out of favour because there are plenty of post-colonial writers copying his style using more immediately identifiable nationalism, as if it is only possible to be a patriot if your ethnicity fits and is pure, but why not embrace multiculturalism and rediscover Rex Shelley?
The story follows one Eurasian family, how they decide their loyalties, how they interact with members of other races and how they find their own sense of nationhood. It is not a perfectly realised story, I did sometimes get confused as to which brother was which as their characters are not given sufficient depth to show their differences. It is nicely written on the whole and I enjoyed reading it.
There is a story of course, it includes quite a few romantic interludes and some exciting guerrilla warfare, but I am not going to tell you more about it. My main interest was in the depiction of the people in a changing time and their conflicting loyalties.

[Liz Neale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Book.