When the novel begins, Matilda and her mother are about to join her father in Townsville, but the rebels' declaration of war on the copper mine company has brought soldiers from Port Moresby to the island. "According to Port Moresby we are one country. According to us we are black as the night. The soldiers looked like people leached up out of the red earth. That's why they were known as redskins." Now the islanders' time is spent waiting for the redskins or the rebels, whoever arrives first. And now, the only white man in the village begins to take part in the islanders' lives. Everyone has called him Pop Eye, although his name is Mr. Watts, because his large eyes "made you think of someone who can't get out of the house quickly enough." He wore the same white linen suit every day and sometimes wore a red clown's nose, "and on those days . . . you found yourself looking away because you never saw such sadness." He pulled a trolley on which his wife stood, regal and proud, with straightened hair piled into a crown.
He decides, in the absence of a teacher since the blockade, that he will instruct the students. He tells them that he is not a teacher, but he will do his best. "I have no wisdom, none at all. The truest thing I can tell you is that whatever we have between us is all we've got. Oh, and of course, Mr. Dickens." They have no idea who Mr. Dickens is, but their parents tell them to ask this Mr. Dickens (for surely he must be a white man with resources) for anti-malaria tablets, aspirin, generator fuel, kerosene and wax candles. When Mr. Watts begins to read to them the next morning from Great Expectations, they are first surprised, then entranced, pulled into Pip's world. "During the blockade we could not waste fuel or candles. But as the rebels and redskins went on butchering one another, we had another reason for hiding under the cover of night. Mr. Watts had given us kids another world to spend the night in. We could escape to another place."
In addition to reading Dickens, Mr. Watts asks the adults to come to the classroom and share what they know of the world. Gilbert's uncle explains broken dreams: "At night the blimmin' dogs and roosters chase after dreams and break them in two. The one good thing about a broken dream is that you can pick up the threads of it again. By the way, fish go to heaven. Don't believe any other shit you hear." But the children always welcome a return to Pip's story, since his world made sense. As the soldiers and rebels make repeated, vicious visits to Matilda's village, the children still have a room of their own that Pip's voice created, "where our voice is pure and alive." Matilda and the rest of the villagers are changed by Dickens and Pip, and Mr. Watts is changed by sharing his beloved author with them.
Mr. Watts also tells them that a gentleman will always do the right thing, and on an "island all but forgotten, where the most unspeakable things happened without once raising the ire of the outside world," that principle is put to a horrific test. Lloyd Jones has written an intense and lyrical novel about the power of story, the dangers and gifts of imagination, and people who do the right thing.--Marilyn Dahl
[Editor's note: First published in Australia by Text Publishing, Mister Pip won the $20,000 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for overall best book, announced in May.]