The Truth Commissioner

Wonderful characterizations! As i came to the end of each chapter I couldn't bear to part with the character - but by two pages into the next chapter I was equally engrossed. Add to that, an intimate knowledge of the incestuous war that has plagued my island home (so personal that an SA style Truth Commission would be swallowed in bile and bitterness) and you have a wonderful social commentary on the fragile society that is now Northern Ireland. Great book. Love to know the outcome to Michael Madden's back story though. Francis Gilroy = Martin McG anyone???

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2222971.html

the book is quite engaging in a masculine sort of way - there are four alternating viewpoint characters, the two IRA men who shot a young informer many years ago, the informer's police handler, and the titular Commissioner who is drawn into this particular story by his own complex family dynamics. I found a number of details a bit jarring, particularly with regard to the internationally appointed commissioner himself (I guess that's a realm I move in more than the author does), but it's a fine character study of four men coming to terms with the damage they have done to themselves, to each other, to the women in their lives and to the long-ago victim. There are no winners, and perhaps that is show more the moral. show less

A wonderful book. Set during the Peace Process that followed the Troubles, it brings together 4 characters, each with more frailties than strengths, all trying to forge a new life, but hauled back to face their pasts in relation to one incident in a farmhouse a long time ago. Henry Stanfield, the Commissioner is jaded and lovelorn, under pressure to bring in the "right result". James Fenton (no, not the poet James Fenton) is a retired RUC Inspector, trying to assuage his guilt of the past by helping Romanian refugees. Francis Gilroy, ex senior volunteer, is now the Minister for Culture. Danny, is trying to build a new life in America. None wants this particular stone unturned, and would rather let sleeping dogs lie. But this dog is show more about to wake and rattle everyone's cage.

I don't know if this book is credible to people who went through the Troubles but for someone, like me, who didn't, its very compelling show less

David Park vertelt een ontroerend en schrijnend verhaal over gekwetste personages, over waarheid, over hoe moeilijk goed en kwaad te onderscheiden zijn in een zinloze oorlog. Parks literaire achtergrond is duidelijk te merken in deze roman met spannende trekjes. Een geladen thema verpakt in een treffend verhaal.
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