Dimensions
153 x 234 x 20mm
The author describes 'He's Not Coming Home' as "a story of love, loss and discovery".
Gillian Johnson Nikakis's parents lived, met and married in colonial Rabaul, New Guinea, in the late 1930s. The early chapters of the book paint a vivid picture of the exotic, glamorous and sometimes dangerous life of ex-pats in Rabaul at the time, including the volcanic eruptions that eventually destroyed the town.
In 1941, shortly before the Japanese invasion, Gillian's mother, Tick, was evacuated to Australia with her two small children, along with hundreds of other women and children. Her father, Bill (like so many other men) was interned shortly afterwards by the Japanese and was never seen again.
The background to the narrative is Gillian's life-long search for the truth about her father, a man she barely knew. As she follows his trail, she discovers more and more layers to the untold story of what actually happened in Rabaul - including the fate of the prisoners on the Montevideo Maru, and some very questionable behaviour by the Australian government.
