The Gendarme (original 2010; edition 2010)

Emmett Conn is 92 years old and he has started having seizures and disturbing dreams/flashbacks. His early years are a mystery to him anyway. He awoke in a British hospital in WWI, a Turkish soldier mistakenly picked up after he was severely wounded. That's as far back as he can remember. But now in his dreams he seems to be re-living a past where he was a soldier in charge of a group of Armenian people in what later came to be known as the Armenian genocide. Are these real memories? And what of the beautiful girl with different-colored eyes? Was she real and did he love her?

I feel like this is a very literary book and I should have something very smart and literary to say, but that's just not my style. I can only tell you what I liked and didn't like.

I had never even heard of the Armenian genocide until sometime in the past year or two. It was actually a passing reference here on GoodReads. I left it at that. I'm disappointed in myself. I'll be the first to spout off with how we have to remember the Holocaust so we don't repeat history, but I didn't bother to at least look at Wikipedia and see what happened to the Armenians. And they are in danger of being forgotten. I saw this author (who is of Armenian descent) speak at the Decatur Book Festival, and he said that Hitler, only about 20 years after all this happened, even said something like, "Who even remembers the Armenians?" Shameful.

Anyway.

This book is told from an aggressor's point of view. He personally didn't feel strongly one way or the other about the Armenians, he just wanted to join the army and fight in WWI. Before that could happen, he had to "prove himself" by escorting a group of Armenians to a refugee camp. He's not a terrible person, but even he does a few horrible things. His biggest crime is in letting some of his soldiers do pretty much whatever they want. And they are creatively terrifying. He's only about 17 years old though. Does that excuse it?

Araxie, the girl he dreams of, is a wonderful character. She at least appears to be fearless. When she realizes she has caught Emmett's attention, she doesn't use him for her personal gain. She challenges him to become a better person and to stand up for her people.

In Emmett's present, he is faced with failing health and family that doesn't really care. It's easier to lock him away somewhere than to deal with the reality of his fading health. He loses all say in his own care and becomes powerless. He wants to mend his relationships in the last years of his life, but his family isn't reciprocating. He has become a sad old man.

And this is where I feel like I should insert my smart, literary thing about shades of gray, and voices for the voiceless, but even if I wrote those kinds of reviews, it's been too long since I finished the book for me to really come up with something like that.

I'm glad I read this, and I do recommend it for those who are interested in issues of the Holocaust and genocide. Don't let these people be forgotten. ( )

Emmett Conn is a man without a past, having suffered a traumatic brain injury during the first World War that left him with only a few scattered memories of the first eighteen years of his life. Mistaken for a British soldier, he was taken to England to recuperate, where he met Carol, an American nurse. He married, had two children, and lived a respectable life. Only after being diagnosed with a brain tumor does Emmett begin to have vivid dreams of a life that he has forgotten for decades, a life in which he is Ahmet Khan, a gendarme participating in genocide in Turkey.

The book is interesting; I have never read, or even heard, much about the Armenian genocide during the first World War (which, I suppose, is often overshadowed by the Holocaust, and which I have studied in much more detail, for the obvious reason of my history). I want to say that the book grabbed me, like it has so many other readers, but sadly, it really didn't. I found myself pushing through some of the chapters. I suppose that I found it nearly impossible to empathize with Emmett/Ahmet, because I went into the story knowing that he was a perpetrator, and I just can't bring myself to like him. Once again, I think that is because of my history.

The book is well-written, and it deals with the often-overlooked genocide of the Armenians. I'd recommend it, but I personally wasn't as drawn into the book as I wish I'd been. ( )

Rivetting historical fiction of the Armenian death marches out of Turkey during WWI. A man who was a gendarme during these marches recovers lost memories of this dark and mostly unknown part of the war through dreams his family thinks are senility. He is an American citizen and does not remember being a Turkish gendarme Ahmet Khan, as he is now 93 year old Emmett Conn living out his last days in Georgia. But through these dreams he remembers an Armenian girl he fell in love with while exiling her along with thousands others into Syria. He is committed to a mental hospital when these dreams spill into real life and he tries to strangle a live-in health assistant. As he comes to realize the part he had not only in this genocide of Armenians but specifically in the life of this woman, he tries to locate her now 70 years later in America. Speaks to the issues of caring for the elderly, perceived mental illness, and brings to light the little known genocide during WWI of Armenians. Interesting way to bridge the past and current, remembered and forgotten experiences, humanity and inhumanity. A good read-Marjorie ( )

Emmett Conn is a family man, a World War I veteran, and a man with a strong work ethic. He is also a man missing part of his past. As a Turk, he fought against the British in WW I, but ended up in a British hospital with head injuries so extensive he wasn’t immediately recognized as an enemy soldier. He has no memory of his life before the hospital. After falling in love with his American nurse, Carol, he marries her and follows her to the US, starting a new life as a husband and father and good citizen.

When a brain tumor hits Emmett as an elderly widower, it brings with it memories that at first he doesn’t realize are his own – memories of being a gendarme, herding Armenians out of Turkey, participating in the horrific persecution and genocide of the Armenian people during WW I. As his memories become clearer and more insistent, Emmett must face up to the truth of his past – and the question of what happened to Araxie, the young Armenia girl with whom he formed an attachment. Can he live with the truth of who he was and what he did?

Before reading The Gendarme, I had never heard the story of the Armenian genocide. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres to read, but it comes with the burden of discovering new-to-me atrocities that humans have perpetrated on one another throughout the ages. I am continually astounded by the depth of evil that resides in the human heart – and it is only in knowing that humans are also capable of great sacrifice and compassion and love that I find comfort.

Emmett is a perplexing character – there is such a dichotomy between the man he was as a gendarme in Turkey and the man he became in the United States. He prided himself on being a good husband, father, and provider, a hard worker and a moral citizen. His head injury during the war caused extreme memory loss, and yet I couldn’t help but wonder if, subconsciously, he was trying to atone for the terrible things he did as a gendarme. His reaction to the uncovering of his memories was intriguing – at first, he did not want to admit that they were memories, wanting to believe that these acts had been committed by someone else. He is left to wrestle with the most basic of questions: what kind of man is he?

Mustian’s first novel is astounding in both the beauty of the writing and the depth of story and character. He has brought to life an episode from history and yet done it the hard way – by writing from the perspective of perpetrator rather than victim, and yet still giving the reader a sympathetic character. And in the midst of the haunting story, he deals with issues like guilt, atonement, and forgiveness. Highly recommended. ( )

An old man's brain tumor triggers his long-forgotten memories of WWI. As we ricochet back and forth between Turkey in 1915 and 75 years later in Georgia (USA), Emmett's memories of his 17-year-old self serving as a guard for captured Armenians begin to haunt his dreams. His past shame hits him hard until he finds he has something to live for...atonement.

I really enjoyed this book about an event in history I knew absolutely nothing about. The five-page author's note about the Armenian genocide amd its coverup in WWI was fascinating. If I had read it before starting the book, it might have enhanced my understanding and enjoyment even more. ( )