Review: A Town Like Alice
A Town Like Alice is a classic, well-received when it was published in 1950. Neville Shute created a one-of-a-kind novel that spanned decades and continents. Which it did — just not as I had expected. It is a product of its time, and while parts of it transcend time, others are stuck firmly in it. A Town Like Alice begins in the early years of the twentieth century. The elderly Scotsman Mr. Mcfadden asks his solicitor to help him execute his last will and testament to give his money and possessions to his only living relatives upon his death: first, to his married sister; then, if she pre-deceases him, his nephew upon his majority at 21 — and, if fate is unkind, his niece, whose legacy will be tended by the solicitors until she turns 35 (because young, unmarried women cannot manage that much money without protection from a solicitor or a husband). Noel, the solicitor, thinks nothing of it again until after World War II, upon the death of the client. Noel must locate his next-...