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Cover design and photography |
'Home's a good place to be, Billy-boy. I'm glad I got to see it again.' When Captain Mack in released from his prison camp at the end of the war, no one is quite sure what to expect, least of all his son Billy. Will he be the same man who went off to war so full of hope and pride, or will he be different? Will he even remember his own children? Or will his experiences on the dreaded railway have changed him forever? In his prequel to the powerful Captain Mack, acclaimed author James Roy takes us on a journey back to 1945, to a time when the world was trying to recover after five years of war, and families were learning how to live together all over again. Billy Mack's War University of Queensland Press |
| When I finished writing Captain Mack , I felt that there was still some more of the story to tell. This was confirmed when I first started talking to students about it. They all wanted to know what happened next. I always gave some kind of clever and evasive answer, but that was only because I wasn't sure myself.
But the thing is this - once you get to know characters the way I got to know Danny and Captain Mack, their story does demand to be told. And that meant that I had to work out what happens after the end of the first book, as well as how the characters came to be the way they are. This book is a prequel, but it's also a sequel. And that dual exploration into the future and the past made this a very interesting book for me as the writer. It made me speculate about how people might react to certain situations, as well as conduct research into the Australia of 1945. I dedicated Billy Mack's War to my father, Don. I also want to acknowledge my grandmother, Rene Roy, who passed away earlier this year. She gave me a lot of guidance as I wrote this book, but sadly she never got to read it. It's a real shame - I know she'd have liked it. |
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