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Heavy as a Mountain

by Vincent Connolly

Narrator James Saunders

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Length 7 hours 1 minute

Language English

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Summary
About the author
About the narrator

When a young Japanese fighter pilot is shot down and captured in the 1942 Darwin bombing, he knows in his heart he should be dead. Duty is heavy as a mountain, death as light as a feather. That’s the Military Code and it means fight to the death, never surrender or you’ll bring a bitter shame on yourself and family.

He conceals his true name to protect his family. Suicide is a possibility, but he’s drawn away from his military indoctrination by experiences with ordinary Australians, drawn towards living out his own individuality.

But the young bride he left behind had vowed she would kill herself if he died. He could write to tell her he lives, but would that reveal his cowardice, shame his family?

And must he sacrifice his individuality to join the growing number of Japanese prisoners in their ferocious plans for a murderous and suicidal breakout?

A tale of the Australian WWII experience, seen through the eyes of this deeply troubled man.

Fiction Historical Fiction

Vincent Connolly was born in Narrabri, NSW in 1939, the youngest of six children. The family moved to Sydney during the war and he grew up in Randwick, his education completed with a Masters degree in Commerce from UNSW. He worked in computer systems development from the earliest days of commercial computing, that career taking him to large organisations in Sydney, Canberra and London, working in the Statistical, Telecommunications, Education and Central Banking fields. Since a change of direction twenty years ago, he has worked in the Australian film industry, first in Financial Control for production and distribution group Arena Film, then for the last twelve years on script editing and research for Arenamedia, with his son, award-winning film maker Robert Connolly. Widowed in 2008, he has three children and seven grand-children.

James is an award-winning actor who has performed on stages and screens throughout Australia, Europe and the Americas. His work in film and TV includes Animal Kingdom, The Turning, Offspring, Winners and Losers, The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. James has also worked across radio documentary and drama, spanning 17 years and counting.