John Turner, who has had a head injury in an air crash, is told that he has only a year to live. He decides to spend his last months making the journey to Rangoon, Burma, in a flying boat to rescue a friend who has gone native.
The Chequer Board (Vintage Classics)
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"Not only a brilliantly fluent storyteller but also an ironic commentator on the world scene" Harpers & Queen "Shute was a brilliant storyteller and a terrific example for any writer" -- Gerald Seymour Daily Express "As a novelist, Nevil Shute goes from strength to strength, experimenting, drawing out life as he sees it, and setting it before us in ordered pattern...The Chequer Board is a notable novel" Punch "Blessed with an unaffected poplar touch, Shute has come close to the sentiment of his readers not only through a very genuine quality of sympathy but also through a singular ease and liveliness of topical invention...he is a storyteller of an uncommonly veracious stamp, whose performance is more remarkable that his quiet and refreshing modest airs might suggest" Times Literary Supplement "A happy knack endows this story with a character who is slightly greater than life-size. It proves once again how the ordinary, the average, the season-ticket holder sitting next to you, can still, in the hands of an expert, furnish the very stuff of literature" -- John Pudney Daily Express
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
About the Author
Nevil Shute Norway was born in London and worked as an aeronautical engineer at Vickers before setting up his own airship company. Worried that his reputation as a fiction writer would damage his engineering career, he wrote without using his surname. He served in both world wars and was a commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II, working on secret projects. After the war he became a full time author completing a fictionalised account of his war time experience in 'Most Secret'. Moving to Australia in 1949 he based seven of his novels against that background including his most successful title On The Beach. This was subsequently a hugely successful film starring Gregory Peck, Antony Perkins and Ava Gardner and became arguably the major after the bomb movie of all time. Shute became one of the top selling authors of the 50s and 60s with wide appeal to a broad international market attracted by strong story lines which were always meticulously researched..
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Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars
12 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of Nevil Shute's best
Sep 19 1996
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Nevil Shute is best known for "On the Beach," his novelabout nuclear war, and, more recently, "A Town Like Alice,"which was made into a TV miniseries. At least half a dozen of his other novels are equally wonderful. My paperback copy of "The Chequer Board" is worn out from reading, rereading, and lending, and it is time for me to replace it with a hardback. His account of relations between black American soldiers and the English during World War II is particularly touching, and is a bit of history that was unfamiliar to me.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Chequer Board
Nov 10 2002
By Tami Brandt
- Published on Amazon.com
What would you do if you had but one more year to live? Battle-wounded Capt. John Turner decided to use his year seaching out three buddies what had been in the military hospital with him -- each in a terrible jam -- and perhaps give them a helping hand. You'll meet snobbish Phil Morgan, the pilot who hated foreigners, yet deserted his wife to live with a Burmese maiden; Duggie Brent, a young commando, who had to unlearn the horrible teachings that made him an unintentional killer; and Dave Lasurier, the shy Negro G. I. who got into bad trouble -- and found his way out with the help of an understanding woman. John Turner's search for these three takes him to the far corners of the earth and into one strange experience after another until, in the end, he has changed from a petty opportunist into a man with truly great understanding, a man without fear of death. Only the author of PIED PIPER and PASTORAL could have written this powerful and touching novel, a story the critics have recommended "heartily and without reservation!" Don't miss it.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought Provoking & Beautifully Written
Jan 31 2000
By Stephen Faulkner
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Nevil Shute's Chequer Board is just what it's title indicates: a checkerboard of characters, places and lives. All are sought out by one man who knew them all only briefly and now, that he is close to death, he wants to "see how they are doing." The novel came out in the late 1940's and refers back to World War II and how four men who survived the crashing of a plane returning from North Africa get on with their lives. Mr. Shute's writing is crisp and lively, his characters come off as very real and each of them touches the reader in his own special way. If you can ever find it, definitely pick up this book and let Nevil Shute take you on a wonderful ride tha you won't soon forget.
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4.7 out of 5 stars
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