Kennedy's Brain

Tragedy trails Louise like an unwanted stray dog. She lost her mother when she was only six years old. She has all but lost her father to grief and alcohol in the years since her mother's tragic accident. Louise's marriage vanished into thin air and for the last twenty-plus years she has barely seen her ex-husband, despite having a son together. She barely believes Aron exists. Now, she is facing the unexplained demise of her only son, Herik, found dead in his bed. Like Verona in The Perfect Daughter by Gillian Linscott, Henrik is found with a belly full of drugs, and with no visible signs of foul play, his death is deemed a suicide. And like Nell in The Perfect Daughter, Louise cannot find truth the forensic evidence. She refuses to show more believe her only son committed suicide. So begins an epic journey to uncovered what really happened to Henrik. From Athens to Barcelona and Mozambique, Louise hunts for explanations.
My one complaint about Kennedy's Brain was the unnatural dialogue between characters. I know Mankell is using his characters to fill historical background and give context to current situations, but they, the characters, offer way more information than is realistic in their conversations. Maybe something is lost in the translation? Here is an example, Adelinho accuses Ricardo of talking too much but when speaking of his friend, Guiseppe, Adelinho reveals Guiseppe is Italian, is friendly, and visits now and then. Adelinho also says Guiseppe likes the solitude, is responsible for the navvies building roads, likes to get drunk, and goes back to Maputo every month. Why tell a stranger all of this? Another example, Lucinda, dying of AIDS needs to tell Louise something important, but she says she is tired. She'll share the rest when she has rested. She then goes on to talk about a few other things of little consequence. show less

Rather lame, tortuous read with an ok script. I must have read one good book by Mankell, the Man from Beijing, which was everything this thriller/novel was not, namely fast, twisty, suspenseful and cruel. In contrast, Kennedy’s brain is a slow burner describing the journey of a mourning mom, who tries to reconstruct, being the archaeologist she is, the bits and pieces of key people in her life – her son who is found dead in his Stockholm apartment – presumably as a result of an overdose of sleeping pills, but more likely the victim of an international conspiracy, just like the conspiracy responsible for the mysterious disappearance of President Kennedy’s brains. Her estranged husband, Aron, who fled to Australia and who ends up show more dead (strangled in Barcelona) after Louise has found him and enticed him to help find their son’s killer. Then there are all the people who played a role in her son Henrik’s life, who she gets to meet in Mozambique. The short of it is a conspiracy of Pharmaceutical companies to test new vaccines against Aids on life humans who have or do not yet have the disease, and who waste away what is left of their miserable lives in a camp near Xai Xai. Louise slowly but surely unravels the story that drove her promiscuous son, and his fight becomes hers, to her own detriment.

My critique? The story could have been told in 200 pages less, at much higher pace, with more perspectives and a lot more suspense. Mankell was clearly seeking a transition in his writing from the Police procedurals which gave him his fame, to a more engaged form of writing that is novelistic and exposing present day challenges like Aids in Africa. He is only partially successful in doing that, though the Swedish aid worker, who practises sadistic sex while fighting for better health was a nice invention. show less

A very good book indeed.
Not just because it is written by Mankell, not at all. Iliked this book a lot, because it made the despair, the anger, the grief of the characters playing a role in this book almost tangible.

I feel hardly any connection at all with the African continent. Never been there, do not wish to go there. In that I'm almost the opposite of the author of this book, who keeps Africa close to his heart.

How he's able to make me forget that it is Africa he's talking about, how he makes his book universal about the fight against those who take advantage of HIV-infections / AIDS, how he shows that people all over the world can be bad, greedy, good, false, afraid and above all, lonely.... I'm really stunned.

This all points in show more the direction of 5 stars, if not.... if there were not the end of this story. Like the author says, it is his choice to make the book end here. And for me, it was too short. The story of Louise has not come to a conclusion for me and I hate to live with this open ending. Almost makes me feel like at the end of a movie.... cliffhanger -> there will be a sequel. I hope the author will stick to this one book. Not that I'm not curious about what's happening to Louise, but I would have wanted to read that in this book and not get that continuation in a new book. show less

Published in Swedish in 2005 Henning Mankell's 'Kennedy's Brain' bears a number of similarities to John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener. Both books are thrillers in a sense but both revolve around the exploitation of the native population in an African country by pharmaceutical companies trying to disguise themselves as benefactors of the impoverished.

Louise Cantor--a middle age Swedish archaeologist does not believe the report that her son Henrik has committed suicide after swallowing a lethal dose of sleeping pills. Too many things don't add up despite obvious evidence to the contrary at least satisfying enough to have the Swedish authorities bowing out. She decides to investigate Henrik's death on her own. With the help of her show more father Artur--she tracks down her long missing ex-husband Aron--Henrik's father--in Australia and they begin tracing Henrik's movements in the recent past which lead them to Barcelona--while there Aron disappears mysteriously and once again Louise is on her own. Where it leads her to is Mozambique to a clinic for dying AIDS patients presided over by the somewhat charismatic head (Christian Holloway) of a multi-national pharmaceutical company who has founded a small village in a remote area where AIDS patients go to die but there is a lot more beneath the surface of this charitable institution as in the blurb on the back cover of the book--'a dark underworld of people exploiting the victims...corrupt businessmen dealing infected blood, suspicious researchers carrying out dangerous tests, and lecherous drug dealers peddling black market medicine'. The real prize for Holloway is the fabulous wealth that comes from designing the drugs--and Mozambique offers him its infected population as human guinea pigs.

Mankell has obviously done some research in this area--as he brings up a lot about the human and animal experimentation on the African continent starting in the 50's. It can be gruesome. In his notes at the conclusion he comments on his own experiences on the continent and that this work was 'fueled by anger'. In any case those feelings do not affect the quality of his writing which is as sharp as in the one other book of his I've read--the Wallander crime investigation novel-One step behind. I found Kennedy's Brain to be equally as compelling as 'One step behind' and I am very much looking forward to reading more of Mankell in the future. show less

I had to think long and hard before writing this review; and I am still not entirely sure of my stance in regards to this book – on the whole I feel Henning Mankell, with Kennedy’s Brain, has somewhat disappointed me. Though readily defined as a mystery the story is, in essence, a social indictment, a denunciation, of events transpiring in the world around us today; but fails to deliver what I felt, could have been a knock-out blow.

The story revolves around archaeologist, Louise Cantor, who upon returning to Sweden from a dig in Greece, finds her only child, Henrik, dead in his bed - uncharacteristically clad in pyjamas. Unable to accept the official finding of suicide, and reeling from inconsolable grief, she begins a journey that show more takes her around the globe in an attempt to piece together, like shards from a Grecian artefact, the facts behind, what Louise believes, is her son’s murder. And discovers, as she travels from continent to continent experiencing the very beautiful and the very ugly, how very little she knew of her son’s life; but through his death, and with his obsession around the disappearance of the assassinated president Kennedy’s brain, the many social injustices prevalent in foreign lands, surrounding the horror of HIV-AIDS, drug research, and the ease of concealment of all these endeavours.

Unlike his previous police procedurals this book, to my mind, lacks the realism that is usual with a Mankell tale. Despite the grim authenticity the book attempts to portray, despite the demise of many characters throughout the plot, and despite the underlying foreboding and trepidation, it seems inconceivable to me that the main protagonist is blithely able to roam into places and begin meaningful dialogue with the very people who can help in her search, without any repercussion. I mean, (possible spoilers) her son is supposedly murdered, her ex-husband disappears as they search, and two terminally-ill occupants, from the medical mission Louise is now investigating, miraculously contrive to leave their death-beds, manage to travel to meet her, and when attempting to reveal disturbing facts, are murdered literally in front of her; but Louise remains unscathed! Plus the basis of the conspiracy supposedly being uncovered is never fully revealed, remaining a shadowy backdrop, on the periphery, instead of front-and-centre to the design.

In all probability this story could be a metaphor, used by an author hoping to articulate society’s sad state of affairs; to expose the terrible iniquities occurring everyday: the cover-up by big business in their never-ending greed, the corruption rife in so many societies, the power of the wealthy over the poor, and the huge divide between the rich and the poverty-stricken in our world nowadays. And the need for decent, dedicated members of our society to piece together the proof, to reveal the disparity, in the hope of reducing this terrible suffering, so rampant and purposely hidden, that devastates so many and so very much. I understand the author's anger; I appreciate the need for change and, as the book reveals, the difficulty in obtaining a true answer in the end – but I am unsure that this piece of fiction will, ultimately, aid in the success of any of these honourable goals.
He gets three stars for trying though...

(Jan 4, 2009) show less

This is a crime novel about a mother (Louise Cantor) who cannot accept that her son's death was a suicide, as the police tell her it was. She begins an investigation into a secret life she didn't know her son was living -- taking her into the world of AIDS in Africa and pharmaceutical company greed.

The author obviously feels very strongly about his belief that we know about how Africans die, but not about how they live. The book ends with a very personal and raw epilogue in which the author allows his anger to show.

I found the novel itself a bit contrived...too many characters find and trust each other too quickly. The ending is inconclusive, which is realistic in the sense that we don't always find all the answers we'd like, but at the show more same time, isn't strongly done. show less

A compelling, interesting, but ultimately unbelievale journey to the heart of evil. Interesting characters, locales, and an upsetting comparison between first-world and third-world expectations. Also, how children often lead lives unknown to parents.But the heroine is much too naive, and some of the situations she finds herself in beggar belief. Also, pretentious and impenetrable in spots.