Customer Reviews

Hiroshima Joe

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a pity this book is out of print. This is one of the best "war" stories I've ever read. I put the word war in quotes because it's not your average war story - it's not on the same playing field as, say, Leon Uris' "Battle Cry", or "The 13th Valley"; it's more along the lines of Clavell's "King Rat", although I found this book to be much more human than "Rat".

In 1952, Joe Sandingham lives in Hong Kong - but during the war, he was captured by the Japanese and placed in several of their POW camps - first in Hong Kong, then several others along the way, finally winding up in Japan. This is the story both of Joe's experiences during the war, and of his life after the war is over, which was a direct result of his time in the POW camps. The title of the book should be a dead giveaway as to one of his experiences; indeed, this book contains some of the most harrowing descriptions of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb that I've ever read.

If you can get your hands on this book in a used-book store, by all means buy it.

Hiroshima Joe is a great achievement in historical fiction, which while following the story of one fascinating man, ties together the fall of Hong Kong, Japanese POW camps, the destruction of Hiroshima, post-war Hong Kong and opium addiction. However, It is also a deeply engaging personal story of pain, survival, love and dignity. The author manages to pull off a sometimes difficult structure, where each chapter alternates between wartime and post-war events in the life of the main character. And to top it all off, what a great title!

As a postscript, I would take exception with two issues on this Amazon page. First, do not read the Publishers Weekly summary at the top of this page, as it gives away the whole book - including the ending! Second, two reviewers contend that the book is flawed because the main character, a homosexual, makes a sexual advance on a child. The event happens towards the end of the book, when a despondent and delusional Joe confuses the boy with a young man he loved as a soldier during the war. Furthermore, he is immediately repulsed by his act towards the boy, which sets off a deep soul searching. If anything, the author here actually contributes to dismissing the notion that all homosexuals are pederasts, rather than encouraging it.

Like Steve Rosse, I found this book abroad. I came across it at the British Council library in Mexico City, and was also deeply effected. I think of it often, and it really came to mind after reading John Lanchester's "Fragrant Harbor" which seems very soft edged next to "Hiroshima Joe".

You can really feel Hong Kong in this book--and not the usual high end of the city where you would expect to find an Englishman like Joe. He is clinging to the very edge of the respectability that his Englishness gives him, and the fact that others know how close he is to falling gives him a scary vulnerability. He has lost all face. He is an addict and a thief, and his loss of control leads him to abuse the only person he can imagine is weaker than he is--a child.

Taken prisoner by the Japanese during the siege of Hong Kong, Joe never goes home when the war is over. Martin Booth so convincingly sets up Joe's past that we ache for him as he is now.

Booth builds up real suspense in telling Joe's story, something that few novels manage these days when you have no doubt that the protagonist will triumph for the sake of the sequel. Joe is threatened from so many different sides that you cannot imagine how his story will end.

I can't recomend this book highly enough; it is well written and as in all good books exists as a beautiful and very very sad human story above and beyond its specific tale of a young man taken prisoner after the fall of Hong Kong on Christmas 1941. The authour explores themes of lonliness, isolation and the loss of love, hypocracy and portrays very well the life of a man who is trapped; trapped by his illness, trapped by his addiction and trapped in his memories of the war and all that he lost, trapped by his guilt for having survived when all those that he loved did not. The war is no dramatic backdrop, Booth's detail and research make this story very real - he is true to his protagonist and true to the times he describes. It is one of my favourite books read it if you find it!

I found a battered paperback edition of Hiroshima Joe in a crummy guest house in Chiang Rai, Thailand, in 1990. Read it cover to cover in one sitting, then walked around stunned for two days. Threw away the copy I had, and I regret it to this day, because I haven't ever met anyone else who's read this book, and for a while I thought I might have imagined the whole thing. How wonderful to find that others have read it, and liked it, and I wasn't halucinating. I hope some day I find another copy so I can read it again. Mr. Booth, thank you so much.

I came upon this book quite by accident. I had read a favorable newspaper review of John Lanchester's Fragrant Harbor, but when I checked the customer reviews on this site, I found that it was not well regarded. One of the Lanchester book's reviewers recommended Hiroshima Joe as a book covering Hong Kong during the same approximate time period, and a far better novel. A search of this site's reviews confirmed that many others held this favorable opinion and I bought the book. I'm very glad that I did.

I live in Bangkok and had just returned from my second visit to Hong Kong a few months ago. I wanted to read a novel about Hong Kong during the colonial period (my first visit there was before the handover). Hiroshima Joe starts about 1941, ends about 1952, and is almost totally about one character who endures unbelievable suffering as a World War II prisoner of the Japanese, and wastes his life away in the post-war years as petty criminal and drug addict. His life is a tragedy and there are no uplifting moral or spiritual lessons in it, as far as I can tell. But, the story is so beautifully, and yes, tenderly told, that I found it a compelling "page turner." The historical details and geographic descriptions are meticulously researched. I kept rooting for Hiroshima Joe, but alas, he was overwhelmed by his personal history and internal demons. I highly recommend this book for its fine writing and story-telling. It would be difficult for anyone not to be deeply touched by the ending.

Well-structured, digestible and image-inducing, Hiroshima Joe offers an especially effective polemic against warmaking at a most personal level. The story follows Joe Sandringham, a British officer captured at the Fall of Hong Kong, through his travails as a Japanese POW, his liberation and its aftermath. In a minor subplot, Joe also is a homosexual, whose partner/fellow soldier is killed in defense of Hong Kong, a compelling passage of the book. The book's principal weakness is its ghastly vision of Joe (and by inference all gay men) as a nascant and lurking pederast. I found this offensive, foul and ill-informed, and a profound misunderstanding of human sexuality and preference. Such a fundamental misunderstanding by the author in one area creates doubt on his other observations of humans and their motives. It weakens substantially what otherwise might be considered a magnificant novel. Nonetheless, I encourage wide readership of this almost fine book.

I just finished an old paperback of this book. It is currently out-of-print, and I hear it is about to be reissued. It was recommended to me as I prepared for a holiday in Hong Kong and Japan. Martin Booth's extreme detail can be tedious at times, but more often than not, he vividly recreates places and situations through sensory details, compelling language and rich characterization. Despite the protagonist's relentless downward spiral, I remained hooked until the end--an ending that is inevitable, but somehow I maintained some tiny morsel of hope, perhaps as Hiroshima Joe himself did.
I must repeat a concern from another post, since it exactly mirrored my own reaction. I did not know in advance that the main character was homosexual, and I was surprised at how matter-of-factly it was revealed and how convincingly it became a part of our understanding and compassion for Joe--THAT IS until near the end when he grossly attempts to seduce and assault a young boy. It did not ring true to his character--however unhinged Joe had become--and it does not ring true to accepted understanding of child molestation. It runs the risk of perpetuating the falsehood that all gay men COULD be pederasts.
That serious concern aside, I think the novel is a masterful achievement. It deserves to have renewed exposure.

I just finished an old paperback of this book. It is currently out-of-print, and I hear it is about to be reissued. It was recommended to me as I prepared for a holiday in Hong Kong and Japan. Martin Booth's extreme detail can be tedious at times, but more often than not, he vividly recreates places and situations through sensory details, compelling language and rich characterization. Despite the protagonist's relentless downward spiral, I remained hooked until the end--an ending that is inevitable, but somehow I maintained some tiny morsel of hope, perhaps as Hiroshima Joe himself did.
I must repeat a concern from another post, since it exactly mirrored my own reaction. I did not know in advance that the main character was homosexual, and I was surprised at how matter-of-factly it was revealed and how convincingly it became a part of our understanding and compassion for Joe--THAT IS until near the end when he grossly attempts to seduce and assault a young boy. It did not ring true to his character--however unhinged Joe had become--and it does not ring true to accepted understanding of child molestation. It runs the risk of perpetuating the falsehood that all gay men COULD be pederasts.
That serious concern aside, I think the novel is a masterful achievement. It deserves to have renewed exposure.

A sad and depressing story of a casualty of war. The places this story unfolds in are interesting and historically significant, which kept my interest in the book. While the horrors of war are well and graphically described, I somehow never developed a great empathy for the main character, Joe. After finishing book, I just asked myself "what was the point?"