Meet me at Lennons

In October I read Khaki Town by Judy Nunn which was predominantly about the effect of the arrival of American soldiers in Townsville during the Second World War. Meet me at Lennons by Melanie Myers is a novel set in Brisbane during World War II also looking at relationships between the military stationed in that city, both US and Australian, and the general public.

Events are revealed via two time frames: the present - concerning PhD student, Olivia Wells and her attempts to  write a thesis about women in Brisbane during the war, particularly the writer Gloria Graham - and the past - recounting stories of experiences of women during the war years. A focus of the book is the story of the River Girl murder, an event which was glossed over at the time by the press and hidden from the public by the military.

Relationships between some Australian women with  American soldiers, jealousies between some of the Australian soldiers regarding the Americans moving into their city plus the insistence of the American military hierarchy that only they would deal, quietly, with possible crimes committed by American soldiers are some of the themes in the novel. There is, however, also a strong focus on the lives of the Australian women living and working in this new environment created by the war.

It took a while to really become involved with events in this book as, particularly initially, there are many stories about different women and their experiences. Over time the varying threads begin to make sense and I eventually became involved with the story. I suspect that this is a book that should be read when there is plenty of time to really become involved with the story and the characters. The novel certainly provides an overview of life in Brisbane in the early 1940s.