Set in New Guinea, this is a frank, funny, satirical, yet serious novel. It is centered on an innocent young Australian schoolteacher who, in the remote village of Wendi, finds himself confronted by such appalling characters such as Peanuts O’Neil, Mucker, Bendix van Kram, and the formidable Mrs Weston, the inspector from Education. The story of his decline and fall comes to a crisis, when Cromwell Jonathon, the indigenous assistant teacher at the school, becomes a leader of a strike on one of the nearby plantations.… (more)