Thorne, Anthony I'm a Stranger Here Myself

“I’m a Stranger Here Myself is a novel about life on the lower deck in an armed merchant cruiser [i.e., “a former passenger liner still bearing marks of a somewhat rococo luxury”], and a very good novel it is, glowing with truth and character and humour. It is described as both a novel and a piece of autobiography (“ninety per cent. of it is fact”), and the narrator, an ordinary seaman in for a commission, is a travelled and literary young man always referred to as ‘Thorney.’ Since he, too, draws straight from life, it may well be asked why he succeeds as a novelist where so many others fail. The answer seems to be that, while rejecting any admixture of fancy, he has brought imagination to bear upon the experience he records in a way that justifies the use of the expedients of fiction. His, in brief, is a quality of observation, a feeling for character and a sense of human issues in peace and war that war-time reporting seldom encompasses. It is the novelist in Mr. Thorne, that is, who composes a faithful description of lower-deck types and manners to-day.” – The Times Literary Supplement, Dec. 25, 1943. The novel is included in this bibliography for its treatment of life aboard an Armed Merchant Cruiser and in particular for its descriptions of the ship’s escort duty for a slow, 6-knot Atlantic convoy. The novel is, as The Times’ reviewer suggested, poignant, big-hearted and very, very English! Also of note: Thorne’s even-handed, non-condemning depiction of a reciprocal gay relationship between two of Thorney’s messmates.