Round the Bend (novel) Round the Bend (novel) Round the Bend is a 1951 novel by Nevil Shute. It tells the story of Constantine "Connie" Shaklin, an aircraft engineer who founds a new religion transcending existing religions based on the merit of good work. It deals with racism, including the White Australia policy, and also with the importance of private enterprise. It was one of the first novels Shute wrote after emigrating from Britain to Australia in 1950. The novel, written in the first person, adopts the voice and eyes of Tom Cutter, an aircraft pilot, engineer, and entrepreneur. The novel starts with Cutter's
A Town Like Alice with them in Australia, but he declines the invitation, returns to Britain and the novel closes. The protagonists share the attitudes of the time: Australian Aborigonal and Torres Strait Islander people are referred to as ""boongs"" or ""abos"". It is also assumed that non-whites must use different shops and bars from whites and that they are less reliable than whites. But these attitudes are often presented not in a racist, but an ironic sense: for example, the captive British women are completely lost, because the only Malayan words they have learned are orders for their Malayan servants, while Jean survives