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Highways to a War
  
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Highways to a War (Hardcover)

by C.J. Koch (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd (30 May 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0434001996
  • ISBN-13: 978-0855616427
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 997,785 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

This novel tells the story of the search for Mike Langford, a war photographer, with a reputation for risk-taking, who disappears inside Cambodia after its fall to the Khmer Rouge. It explores the highways that led Langford to war and to his ultimate fate.


About the Author

Christopher Koch is of Irish, English and German ancestry. For a good deal of his life he was a broadcasting producer, working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney. He has lived and worked in London and elsewhere overseas. He has been a full-time writer since 1972, winning international praise and a number of awards for his five previous novels - many of which are translated in a number of European countries. In 1995, Koch was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A novel about the human experience of war and its inhumanity, 7 Dec 2000
By A Customer
'Highways to a War' is a Vietnam War novel with a difference: for a start, there is very little gore. The hero, Mike Langford, like his creator, is Tasmanian, which perhaps makes it easier for him to be neutral. That is to say, he is neither pro- nor anti-USA; he is certainly anti- Vietcong and Khmer Rouge, but even that bias is humanitarian, becoming personal, rather than political. A war photographer, he simply records what he sees, making sure the underdog is represented. Koch's characters portray a fair cross-section of humanity but the main characters are sufficiently interesting to avoid being types; the same cannot be said for some of the minor characters like Aubrey Hardwick, master spook. Langford's two main friends and colleagues in the field are shown as an international version of The Three Musketeers: all for one and one for all. It could be argued that Koch overplays the near canonisation of the hero, a cross between the Pied Piper of Hamelin and Christ, who inspires devotion and even love in all but a few and those are clearly of no consequence. We see Langford only through the eyes of his friends and devotees but he is no less sympathetic a character for that. Koch uses the clever device of Ray, the childhood friend, as narrator, thus ensuring that we are able to find out about Langford's childhood experiences and influences, helping us to understand what happens to him in later life and how his character develops, as well as providing a naturalistic reason for his friends to relate the events of his Vietnam / Cambodian life, when Ray goes to Bangkok to investigate Langford's disappearance. 'Highways' is a real page-turner, even for people who would normally prefer to read the cereal packet than pick up a war novel. Please read it!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing insights into the life of a war photographer, 18 Mar 2005
This review is from: Highways to a War (Paperback)
Christopher J Koch's account of the fictional life of war cameraman Mike Langford is a truly exceptional novel that justly deserved winning Australia's premier literary award, the Miles Franklin. The novel is narrated by Mike's childhood friend, Ray Barton, who travels to Bangkok in 1976 following Mike's disappearance inside Khmer Rouge-controlled Cambodia, with the realism of Ray's narration augmented by his use of the journal records of a number of Mike's friends and transcripts of tape recordings made by Mike himself.

'Highways to a War' will be best remembered for its well-researched realistic depictions of life in Phnom Penh, Saigon and war-torn rural Indo-china. In addition, Koch also successfully evokes rural life in a 1950s Tasmania that Mike dreamed of escaping, the sights and smells of Boat Quay in a newly independent Singapore, and the economic prosperity - and ubiquitous traffic jams - of Bangkok in the mid-1970s.

Langford is highly respected, even lionized, by many he meets due to legendary feats of bravery and compassion that have passed into folklore amongst the wartime scribes and photographers. Langford's colleagues - such as Jim Feng, Harvey Drummond and 'the Count' Dmitri Volkov - are all fully developed characters, enabling readers to get useful insights into the motivations of those risking their lives to secure a scoop or take an iconographic war photo. Elements of doomed romance are added to Koch's mix through the inclusion of the intriguing Madame Phan in Saigon, and the love of Mike's life, Ly Keang, in his adopted home of Phnom Penh.

'Highways to a War' is fast-paced, highly readable and strongly recommended for all, and an absolute must for those with an interest in the recent history of South-east Asia and/or the dangers and demands of journalism in conflict zones.

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