Billarooby

by Jim Anderson

Drought and a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp force a father and son to confront the bitter secrets of the past. (Nancy Pearl)

Genres: Fiction, Australia

321 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1988

About the author

Jim Anderson has always been pulled towards both the literary and the visual arts. He graduated as a lawyer from Sydney University in 1961, but says he can’t remember anything he learned. He discovered bohemia and frequented the Sydney Push in the late 1950’s and was soon caught up in Sydney’s counter culture. Where Have All the Flowers Gone, his roman a clef based on those experiences, remains unpublished.

He became Art Editor of Oz Magazine in the UK in time to be put in the dock as a conspirator in the famous 1971 Obscenity trial at London’s Old Bailey. After the demise of Oz in 1973, he spent 20 years in the US where, as well as engaging in various hippie excesses, he edited the Monday edition of The Bolinas Hearsay News, for which he also designed front covers and wrote a column on the previous week’s events. During that period he also worked as amanuensis for writer Charles Fox (The Noble Enemy, Portrait in Oil) and had a novel of his own published, Billarooby (1988), a wartime story set in the Australian outback. Billarooby received international rave reviews.

Since returning to Sydney in 1993, Jim has continued his editing, writing and photo-artist careers and still plays an active role in the cultural activities of the GLBT community. Anti-establishment satire has remained a focus. Exhibitions of his art include a major retrospective, Lampoon, an historical art trajectory 2011 at the University of Sydney’s Tin Sheds Gallery. The artwork exhibited and a brief memoir were published and copies can be obtained from the author.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had an enemy for a friend, but he was no enemy of mine.

Australia, 1942

To escape the war and a brewing scandal, the Armstrong family has left England for the small outback town of Billarooby. This tale is seen through the eyes of eleven-year-old Lindsay, who details the near collapse of his family during a prolonged drought. His strict disciplinarian father drifts toward madness, tempted by alcohol, religious zealotry, and the charms of a hired Land Girl. Lindsay's mother, in turn, seems mesmerized by the local wounded war hero. Adding to the tension is the close proximity of a POW camp.

Now, as I heard a whistle blow and saw a line of men appear behind one of the huts, I realized who it was that I had been following. These men were dressed in red clothes and they were behind heavily barbed wire because they were Japanese, the scourge of the Pacific. The man I had followed was no Chinese gardener but a Japanese prisoner who had escaped.

I shrank back into the rocks. For the first time I felt that I had come too far from home,. and I looked around in dread, almost expecting the escaped man to be behind me.

"Japs," I whispered. "Japs are worse than Hitler."

After reading a book on Samurai, Lindsay becomes obsessed with the prisoner, projecting all sorts of heroic traits onto the man. One day he asks his teacher,

"I was wondering, sir, would it be a dreadful thing to have a prisoner as a friend?"

As the months spin by and still no rain falls, tempers flare, and the townspeople become preoccupied with the POWs as well. Convinced there will be an uprising at the prison, they decide to take the law into their own hands.

Much of the charm of this book is due to Lindsay's narration. A shy adolescent, he is confused by his burgeoning sexuality, attracted by twin classmates and teased by the Land Girls. In truth, he'd much rather read a book than hang out with kids his own age. I can relate.

This one is still in print, with many used copies in circulation. Highly recommended.

[Stephanie Pieck · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel tells the story of a family who fled England during World War II, driven by the father's attempt to escape dark secrets rather than the threat of war. They settle in a remote Australian town and attempt to grow vegetables. The eleven-year-old narrator has an encounter with a Japanese soldier who has escaped from the nearby prisoner of war camp, sparking fantasies of heroic rescue and honor. These are heightened when he's given a book about the samurai. The book's lavish pictures and celebratory prose convince the boy that the Japanese prisoners would rise up, take over the camp, and then go on a quest to return to their emperor. He believes that, to preserve their honor, they would rather die than be captured.
While the boy is in thrall to the samurai code, his father comes under the influence of a local man with violent and racist tendencies. A drought sets in, and mounting pressures from within and without set the family on a path toward crisis.
The author captures the unique logic of a boy caught between childhood and adolescence. He holds shifting allegiances with the adults around him as he struggles to accept what really sent his family to Australia and the role he played in those events.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well put-together coming of age story of Lindsay Armstrong, an 11-year-old boy in a drought stricken town on the Lachlan in outback New South Wales from 1942-1944 who deals with his dysfunctional family (affected by the death of a grandfather in England) and fantasises about the” noble Samurai” in a nearby POW camp. An interesting read