James A. Michener - Tales of the South Pacific <AudioBook>

Enter the exotic world of the South Pacific, meet the men and women caught up in the drama of a big war. The young Marine who falls madly in love with a beautiful Tonkinese girl. Nurse Nellie and her French planter, Emile De Becque. The soldiers, sailors, and nurses playing at war and waiting for love in a tropic paradise.

CONTENTS
The South Pacific
Coral Sea
Mutiny
An Officer and a Gentleman
The Cave
The Milk Run
Alligator
Our Heroine
Dry Rot
Fo' dolla'
Passion
A Boar's Tooth
Wine for the Mess at Segi
Airstrip at Konora
Those Who Fraternize
The Strike
Frisco
The Landing on Kuralei
A Cemetery at Hoga Point





Tales of the South Pacific is a Pulitzer Prize winning collection of sequentially-related short stories about World War II, written by James A. Michener in 1946. The stories were based on observations and anecdotes he acquired while stationed as a lieutenant commander in the US Navy on the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands (now known as Vanuatu). The skipper of PT-105 met Michener while stationed at the PT boat base on Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

The stories take place in and surrounding the Coral Sea and the Solomons. Michener gives a first-person voice to several as an unnamed "Commander" performing duties similar to those he performed himself. The stories are interconnected by recurring characters and several loose plot lines (in particular, preparations and execution of a fictitious amphibious invasion code-named "Alligator") but focus on interactions between Americans and a variety of colonial, immigrant and indigenous characters. The chronology of the stories takes place from before the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942 to early 1944. Although primarily about the U.S. Navy, most of the action is shore-based, and none concerns ships larger than an LCI.

The musical play South Pacific (which opened on Broadway on April 7, 1949), by Rodgers and Hammerstein, was based on these stories. While the coastwatcher in the musical was cast as an American, the coastwatchers were actually a network of Australians and native scouts, some of whom helped save the crew of John F. Kennedy's PT-109.




The Covenant

Tales of the South Pacific