Customer Reviews

Bread and Rice: An American Woman's Fight to Survive in the Jungles and Prison Camps of the WWII Philippines

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This story focuses on the personal experience of 2 Americans and the people who befriended them and sometimes betrayed them. Most of the book deals with the 2 years they were in hiding and then follows them through their surrender to the Japanese, prison life and life in internment camps.

The author was a journalist in China when Japan invaded it and wrote bluntly of the Japanese activities there. When she and her husband were later in the Philippines and Japan invaded, they feared her past actions would cause the Japanese to treat her especially harshly and so they fled to the jungle.

The first chapter and part of the second are written in a stream of consciousness manner, but don't let that deter you. Part way in the second chapter she begins writing in a narrative style that continues throughout the book. From then on, it's hard to put down.

I knew the author of Bread and Rice years ago. She was a wonderful elderly lady, and I had long looked for her book. I can say I found the book as interesting as I found Ms Macauley herself. She was a remarkable person.