Sepik Blu Longpela Muruk

I was please to receive an electronic version (e-book) of the novel Sepik Blu Longpela Muruk, written by Australian David Hall (pictured), a former resident of the East Sepik province, recently.
I’m currently going through the e-book and will do a book review as soon as I complete reading it.
Below are details of the book and the author:
In the seclusion of pre-independent and post-independent Papua New Guinea, we find a group of expatriates, from an eclectic yet progressive Dutch priest to the money
grabbing John Pietro.
Among them is James Ward, an Australian Malaria Control Officer in the East Sepik District where this story begins.
James Ward, in confronting his own values and those of the New Guineans, is on a humorous path of life, at once real and imagined.
Tortured by religious scruples and sexual desires, James’s life becomes a trajectory of impulses and aspirations without lasting resolutions.
In this novel, the many personalities are scrutinised, as it were, in a fishbowl, exposing the traits and attributes that distinguish them in their frontier society.
Some cope and endure, while others simply enjoy life.
They are at times like the haughty and elusive cassowary or muruk of the jungle; at other times, they are attractive and tender like the Sepik Blue orchid or Sepik Blu.
In the colonial Sepik District, many expatriates had an adventurous lifestyle in their personal relationships, and in implementing administration policies of justice, political education, health and
commerce.
The expatriate legacy, for better or worse, is part of the history of Papua New Guinea.
The characters of Sepik Blu Longpela Muruk are portraits of people formed by the time and place they lived in.
There are no easy answers to the complex question of the morality of colonial rule in the lives of many of the expatriates.
For James Ward, he embarks on a quixotic adventure in early independent Papua New Guinea that spells out his kismet.
About the Author
David Andrew de Bérigny Wall was born in Melbourne in 1936 and educated in Sydney at Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview.
After leaving school, he worked in Papua New Guinea on plantations and for the Department of Health for 18 years.
In the 1970s he returned to Sydney and qualified as a teacher librarian, subsequently working in high schools for the New South Wales Department of Education.
He resides in Newtown, Sydney with his wife, Deborah.
They have two grown-up children, Andrei and David Augustus.
The years he lived in Papua New Guinea have left him with an abiding interest in the country and its people. Contact Wall on email mahal362000@yahoo.com.au if you want to buy a copy of the book.

Malum, thanks for the piece on my novel. I would be happy to send an online copy to anyone; just email me: mahal362000@yahoo.com.au or there is a version available on my blog: http://deberigny.wordpress.com/I read your blog with interest. Kind regards, Dave