An astonishing book: the seduction by an evil person, the desperate lives of the displaced and dispossessed. The title refers to a 2012 commemoration of the siege of Sarajevo: 11,514 red chairs were placed in rows, one for each person killed in the siege that lasted for almost 4 years. What is remarkable about this book is that it is an Irish woman, Fidelma, who is the central core to the story which takes place in Ireland and England. Thanks Mike, for this recommendation.
Category: war
The Sympathizer – Viet Trans Nguyen
This is a brilliant book, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, about the aftermath of the Viet Nam war from the point-of-view of Vietnamese people. The narrator is a Communist double agent who flees to America after the fall of Saigon, and then returns to Viet Nam to be subjugated to the extreme brutality of a Re-Education Camp. This book has a brilliant presentation of politics and ideology, moral ambiguity, and the existential crisis of leading a double life that is complex, compelling and frustrating. The legacy of war is presented in graphic detail.
The Daughters Of Mars – Thomas Keneally
This is a sweeping epic story of two Australian sisters who travel to Europe as nurses at the time if WWI.The settings: Egypt, Gallipoli and finally France. The chaos of war extends to medical care, and just as WWI is ending, Spanish influenza creates more death and suffering. There is a broad scope to this novel, particularly the role of women at this time. Keneally is the author of Schindler’s Arc, the Booker-prize winning novel that was transformed into the movie Schindler’s List.
The Sky Is Falling – Caroline Adderson
Adderson writes perfect novels of time and place, in this case Vancouver in the early 1980s. A group of young people share a home in Kitsilano, and the description of their lifestyle is fantastic. They are preoccupied (obsessed) with concern about war and the nuclear arms race, and their confusion and angst drives the plot. This is an under-rated novel, so highly recommended.
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
Simonson wrote the delightful “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand“, and this book, only her second, is even better. The story takes place in an English village (Rye, in Sussex) before WWI, with all the snobbery and vicious gossip that characterized Downton Abbey. The description of the limited role of women is particularly well-told in this pre-suffragette era. The book ends with a graphic description of the horrors of trench warfare; belligerent and ignorant troop commanders are particularly odious. This is an excellent read.
Tell by Frances Itani
A beautifully written story in the aftermath of WWI, in particular secrets and silence because of with-holding conversations, and the toxicity of internalizing grief. This is a companion story to Itani’s brilliant earlier novel Deafening. Itani is a Canadian literary treasure.
A Sunday At The Pool At Kigali by Gil Courtemanche
Full disclosure – this is a disturbing book and not for the faint-hearted. The book details the events in early 1994 in Rwanda: the AIDS epidemic and mainly the Hutu-led genocide against the Tutsis. Amidst much death and brutal violence is a love story, the tender relationship between a Canadian journalist and a Rwandan woman who is Hutu but looks like a Tutsi. Issues of identity are crucial in the genocidal purge of “cockroaches”, the term the Hutu use to describe Tutsis to justify their extermination. Indifference from the UN and Western powers is described in detail, along with rampant corruption. This is a powerful book: how can love exist in this Rwandan hell?
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A tough war story about soldiers in Viet Nam. A chapter about the author’s reaction to being drafted is brilliant. A central theme is keeping the dead “alive” with dreams and stories. Powerful storytelling (this book came from a “50 books that everyone must read” list).
Dogs At The Perimeter by Madeleine Thien
This is a heartbreaking story of Cambodia in the 1970s, horrors that persist two decades later in Canada. A haunting phrase: “Hunger was erasing my being”; reality becomes blurred in such horrible circumstances. Thien was at Blue Metropolis last May in Montreal.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10129122-dogs-at-the-perimeter
What David Read 