Alan Marshall Short Story competition

I arrived home tonight to two letters in my mailbox, one a letter from one of my credit card companies with a terse reminder that my card payment is overdue, the other an envelope with the Shire of Nillumbik logo on it. I looked, looked twice, looked again. Oh no, this was it -- my first short story competition attempt, it's fate held within a business sized cream envelope.

I imagined winning. I imagined being shortlisted. I imagined recieving a commendation, some words of praise, of encouragement, of success. Such is the support I receive from Emily, the flattering feedback from Suzi, the general comments given to me on the critique group that read Iris before I submitted her, that I could hardly imagine not being recognised in some way. Yet, despite my false confidence, any form of recognition seemed too good to be true.

The letter, two pages (double sided), advised the results, the judges report, the list of stories and authors who had so impressed the judge that she wrote glowing words of encouragement. Judging was difficult, Cate admitted, the quality of entries was exceptionally high. Over 600 short stories were received. She was given a short-list and of those she laboured for weeks to choose the winning entries.

Mine was not among them. Iris, I quickly learned, had failed to impress.

Surprise came first, then disappointment, then a brief flush of shame for having thought she had a chance. I have such a rich source of encouragement in Emily that my confidence in my writing has outstripped the reality that I'm just another person with big dreams and some talent... but not enough to win, not enough to receive a commendation, probably not even enough to have made it into the shortlisted pile for Cate to read. But, you know what, despite how much I really wanted some recognition from some faceless stranger whose work I've never read, I'm relieved the wait is over. I'm relieved that I know.

I think nothing less of Iris. I think nothing less of my writing. I think nothing less of my dreams, of my future, of the certainty that one day I will have my moment in the light, just as Emily will have hers. Our boys, our characters, they matter.

I long to read these winning entries. I know they will entrance me just as they entranced Cate. If Iris was better than the winners, then she would have won. She did not, but that does not devalue her, or me. There's room for us all. And, even if there isn't, even if my writing is seen only by Emily, by my friends and a few people on a critique group, the fact remains -- I write because I have to. Just as a painter paints, an artist creates, a writer writes... this is my duty, it is my life.

To the winners of the Nillumbik 'Alan Marshall short story competition', I tip my hat to you and am proud that my little story was judged along-side yours.

BR: Holes (Louis Sachar)

Amazon Link: Holes

The back cover reads:

Stanley Yelnats isn't too surprised to find himself at Camp Green Lake, digging holes in the dried-up lake bed, day after scorching day. After all, his family has a history of bad luck.

The boys at Camp Green Lake must dig one hole each day, five feet deep and five feet across. But what are they diggting for? Why did Green Lake dry up? And what do onions and lizards have to do with it all? The answers lie in Stanley's own past...

I found this book at 'Back to Booktown 2008' in the nothing over $1 section. I paid 50 cents, knew up-front that it was a kids book, and really wasn't expecting too much from it. Now, I won't lie and say it's a literary masterpiece, but it is a damn good read. Equally entertaining for kids and adults.

Stanley Yelnats (his name can be spelled backwards) is a fat kid with a strong sense of family loyalty, and a solid belief in superstition, particularly a curse that was put on the family some years before. He finds himself at Camp Green Lake, a detention centre for delinquent boys, after being wrongly accused of stealing a pair of running shoes... no ordinary running shoes though, of course. He accepts his fate, convinced that this is all just part of the curse and that as long as he's careful, avoids the deadly spotted lizards and doesn't upset the warden, he'll get out of it all unscathed.

The boys aren't just made to dig holes because it exhausts them, keeps them occupied and shapes them into better people, no there's a bigger game at play, one which proves to be potentially deadly.

Coincidence plays a big part in this story, with unlikely connections proving paramount to the plot and to Stanley's fate. Each revelation is handled well, hinted at before connections are made, and the underlying logic (though realistically implausible) is convincing within the established scenario.

The story moves quickly, with equal measure of action and interaction between the boys and the adults. A serious undertone of social inequality and child neglect is dealt with so as to not overwhelm younger readers, but while not ignoring that this is a real issue for many teenagers of Stanley's age. This is a great read for kids, and equally enjoyable for adults.

Rating: ***1/2 out of five.

Five Bells (Kenneth Slessor)

Five Bells (Kenneth Slessor, 1939)

I heard this poem for the first time on Radio National yesterday while driving back to Melbourne after spending Mother's Day weekend with mum and family. The poem is stunning -- haunting, tragic and beautiful and as much as I wish to copy and post it here on my blog, I understand it to be under copyright to the Slessor family and to reprint it (as has been done on other websites) would be offensive to the poet's memory and his family.

The poem is available in Kenneth Slessors 'Collected Poems', published by Angus and Robertson, or it may be heard from the Radio National podcast for the next month or so.

The poem is melancholy, driven with grief, confusion, loss and despair. It is a confronting illustration of death, of the moments of dying and the dissillusioned haunting experienced by those left behind. To hear it read out loud, read properly by a speaker versed in the nuances of poetic rendition, is to experience its complete bleak glory. I consider it to be impossible for a listener to come away unaffected or unchanged.

I have no aspirations toward poetry, but quality literature has a degree of poetic union and poetic verse slants toward literary story telling. Where the line between the two blurs is where you'll find me, transfixed, entranced, bewitched by the wonderment of words.

BR: The Riders (Tim Winton)

Amazon Link: The Riders

The back cover reads (in part):

“Fred Scully eagerly waits in an Irish airport for the arrival of his wife and seven-year-old daughter. He envisions a new life ahead of them, a fresh start in an old farmhouse that he’s been renovating during the weeks they have spent apart. But something goes catastrophically wrong. His daughter emerges inexplicably alone through the airplane terminal’s glass doors, and Scully’s life goes down in flames.

Thus begins The Riders, a dark and powerful journey into the obsessive psyche of a man in search of a woman vanished. It is a tale of the ghosts that plague relationships; of revelation sought in places and people; and of redemption found in the determined will to carry on. Epic in its sweep yet gripping in its details. The Riders is storytelling at its most haunting.”

This story can be summed up in a few words: a man searches for his missing wife, daughter in tow. The book is more, so much more.

I can recount the plot for it is simple, the settings I can list off for there are many, I can even outline the progression that this character takes from loving, hopeful, thankful (a touch disbelieving at his fortune to have such a beautiful wife) to desolate emptiness. What I cannot do is justice to Tim Winton’s writing. To capture that, you must read this book yourself.

Here is an excerpt, quoted at length so readers may see the beauty in the detail.

In sleep Scully felt like a flying fish, a pelagic leaper diving and rising through temperatures, gliding on air as in water. He heard the greater oceanic static. He felt seamless. Weightless, free.

He woke suddenly with Billie’s face close to his, her eyes studying him, her breath yeasty with antibiotic. She ran the heel of her palm across the stubble of his cheek. Her skin was cool, her eyes clear. The surf of traffic surged below.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said. ‘I feel ordinary again.’

He lay there, muscles fluttering, like a fish on a deck, feeling the dry weight of gravity, the hard surprise of everything he already knew.

Mist lay across the soupy swirl of the Seine. It hung in the skeleton trees and billowed against the weping stonework of the quais. The river ran fat with whorls and boils, lumpy with the hocks of sawn trees and spats of cardboard. He felt it sucking at him, waiting, rolling opaque along the iced and slimy embankment. It made him shudder. He held Billie’s hand too firmly.

‘This isn’t the way to Dominique’s,’ she murmured.

‘Yes it is. More or less.’

In every piss-stinking cavity the mad and lost cowered in sodden cardboard and blotched sleeping bags. Out of the rain and out of sight of the cops they lay beneath bridges and monuments, their eyes bloodshot, their faces creased with dirt and fatigue. Was it some consolation to imagine that Jennifer might be here among them? Did the idea let him off, somehow, take the shame and rage away? These faces, they were generic. Could you recognise a person reduced to this state? Maybe he’d walk past her and see some poor dazed creature whose features had disappeared into hopeless fright. Would she recognise him, for that matter? Was his face like that already?

Beneath the Pont Neuf he stepped among these people and whispered her name. The stoned and sore and crazy rolled away from him. Billie tugged at his hand but he stared into their eyes, ignoring their growls of outrage until a big gap-toothed woman reared and spat in his face. Billie dragged him out into the faint light of day. She sat him down in the square at the tip of the island, and pressed the gob away from his face with his own soiled hanky. He let out a bitter laugh. She hated to see the way he trembled. She hated all of this.

Scully looked back toward the bridge. Something in the water caught his eye. Something, someone out in the churning current. He shrugged off the child and went to the embankment to peer upstream. Dear God. He saw plump, pink limbs, tiny feet, a bobbing head. He wrenched his coat off. Please God, no.

‘Sit down, Billie, don’t move! You hear me? Don’t move from this spot!’

He edged down the slick embankment, grabbing at weeds and holes in the cobbles. The current was solid. He looked about for a stick, a pole, but there was only dogshit and crushed Kronenberg cans. Close to the water he found a ringbolt and he hung out precariously from it, titled over the water, reaching with one arm as the tiny pink feet came bounding his way. The steel was cold in his anchored hand. His face stung. His heart shrank in his chest. He saw ten perfect toes. Creases of baby fat. Dimpled knees. He poised himself, seeing his chance, and in one sweeping arc he reached out – and missed. Oh God! His fingers sculled hopelessly on the water. And then he saw it clearly as it floated gamely by – cherry mouth pert and cheeky, plastic lashes flapping as it pitched, cupped hands steering it through the soupy convergence at the end of the island.

‘I’m not really into dolls,’ called Billie, standing precariously close to the edge. ‘But I’m glad you tried.’

Scully hung there panting, the sweat cold on him already. He hated this town.

Some readers have found this story to be incomplete. Too much is left unresolved, they say, there is too much mystery for it to be a fulfilling story and yes, I can see why might they feel this way, however I don’t agree.

This book is about experience, about living, dreaming and doing, giving our all (every tiny fragment of our being, and more – so much more) in the hope of winning that which we seek. Scully’s emotional erosion is difficult to witness, even worse is the effect on Billie, his daughter. Anyone with half a heart wishes for a happy ending, or at least an explanation, something to fill the gnawing questions that slice the insides of these characters and eats like acid into their souls. But, they don’t get their happy ending, they don’t get answers and neither do we, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Rating: ***** (out of five).

Near mid-year update

It’s the beginning of May 2008. I made clear goals for this year and, as a checkpoint, I shall review progress thus far.

My goals were:

Complete the first draft of my novel:
I estimated I would need to write another 80,000 words. I’m now at the 55,000 word mark with an expected end point of 120,000 words. So, apparently I have written 15,000 words in four months. That’s 3,750 words a month. Hmmm… I somewhat doubt the accuracy of that, but I’m not in a rush to complain. However, in order to reach my goal by the end of the year I must write (on average) 8,125 words per month. Well, geez, looks like I better get busy!

Write nine (original) short stories (in addition to Iris):
I seem to recall that I’ve written two. One a short story composed entirely of dialogue, and another written as a prompt at the Best Friend’s Holiday Retreat. Neither are competition-worthy.

Submit Iris to the Alan Marshall Short Story Award:
Well, yay, I have done that. I haven’t heard anything yet, and I’m not holding my breath.

Submit five short stories to competitions:
See note above. Can’t submit what doesn’t exist. *smacks own hand*

Enter The Age short story competition:
Again, as above. Anyone seeing a pattern here!?

Read 60 (fiction) books (and blog-review each one):
I’ve read 18 (an average of 4.5 per month). That’s not bad considering that there was one month when I read just one. So, I just need to up that by one book a month and I’ll meet my goal. That’s easy! I love reading! And, as my earlier blog illustrates, I have no shortage of reading material!

Read 10 (non-fiction) books:
I can’t recall that I’ve read even one, at least not through to completion. This may not have been a realistic goal, given that I read for research but rarely information gathering requires reading an entire book from cover to cover. Most non-fiction books fail to hold my interest for that long, and reading just so I can tick off from a list does not seem a good use of time.


Anything else to be added that has been missed:

This is a good time to consider whether my goals are comprehensive enough. I didn’t include anything around time management, though that has been a troubling issue for quite some time. For much of last year I rolled out of bed anywhere between 6am and 8am (or later), and staggered into work anywhere between 8:30am and 11am (if I got there at all). Some days I wrote, most days I didn’t.

Since Emily left at the end of March, I have established a routine of waking to an alarm at 5am, either getting up (or, if I’m feeling unwell, then snoozing for another 30 to 45 minutes), and leaving for work at 7am. I work through until 4pm and am home at 5pm. Most nights I’m in bed by 9pm. It’s a routine that works, makes me feel good and has ample time for writing and reading.

It’s a great achievement, one I thought impossible given my long-established distaste of anything that resembles routine. It’s to be celebrated, rejoiced, spoken of with much pride! However, now that I have this great new habit, am I using it to write?

*shuffles feet, chews fingernails, avoids eye contact*

The fact of the matter is that I’ve managed to turn my 2 hours of a morning into even more procrastination time. I get up, turn on the computer, check emails, reply to any I’ve received (or make new ones if I’ve not received any), then (because it’s normally gone 6am by this time and I’ve not showered, gotten lunch ready or done anything else I have to do before I leave), I procrastinate for another 15 minutes (web-surfing, reading media websites, etc) before finally heading off to the shower and then rushing around because I’m running late.

Great little habit that one. *rolls eyes* I really am my own worst enemy.

So, instead of beating myself up over this, I shall focus on how great it is that I have established a habit of getting up early. *pats self on back* And recognise that I need to fine-tune that so that it is productive time. That’s the easy part, and this webpage has given me some great ideas: Create a Morning Writing Ritual

With appropriate credit to Leo Babauta, here’s my plan:

1. Prepare the night before:

- tidy desk, remove all unrelated material, leave only items needed for writing
- set out hot chocolate, mug, spoon, small saucepan for boiling milk
- prepare lunch/snacks for work and set aside clothes for next working day
- pre-writing prep (notes, connections, a basic idea of what I’ll write in the morning)
- Aim to be asleep by 9 pm

2. Set a time to start:

I set my alarm for 5am, so I will stick with that and then see if I can make it earlier. Maybe I’ll set it ten minutes earlier each week and see how that goes. To start things off though, tomorrow morning I shall rise at 5am, get everything ready for work, make my hot chocolate (Haighs, I’m spoiling myself!) and sit down at the computer and force myself to write.

3. Get your coffee first:

I don’t drink coffee, so I’ve bought some Haigh’s hot chocolate. Yum!! That on its own will be enough to get me out of bed!

4. Don’t check email or RSS feeds:

This is going to be harder. I LOVE hearing from my friends, especially Emily, but... *deep sigh* I mostly receive emails during the day, and I can easily respond to them of an evening. There’s no real reason for me to be focussing on emails of a morning. It’s just willpower, and keeping my eye on the goal of my novel completed to full first draft by December 31.

5. Clear away all distractions:

Since I’ve moved my study into the old spare room, this is a lot easier to achieve. I look at a beautiful big green wall. As long as the desk is tidy, then there are no distractions (aside from the ones I find online, and the ones that my dog present to me in the form of toys, balls, a hairy butt to be scratched).

6. Just write:

Thirty minute blocks work well for me, so I shall do that. The breaks between the blocks must be small though. A break to get a drink, go to the toilet, find more food, that’s all. No more than five minutes each time, preferably even less than that. I have to be strict about this because I am so easily distracted.

7. Celebrate when you’re done!

Woo hoo, once I’ve spent and hour and a half writing, I get to go to work! *groans* However, I do get to walk to the station and then read my book on the train, so I guess that constitutes some form of a reward. Best of all though, I get to have a sense of achievement, and the knowledge that even if I do absolutely no writing for the remainder of the day it won't be a major travesty.

8. Practice

Every day, regardless of what day it is, this must be my routine. This will be broken only by social activities where I’m up too late the previous night to wake up early the following day. Unfortunately, I need 8 hours of sleep or else my immune system starts eating itself, literally. I am such a nerdy hermit though that there will be a rare day when this habit is broken.

I'll report back in a week or so to say how I'm going. I trust I'll bring good news and an improved word count (maybe even a new chapter!)

BR: Gravity (Scot Gardner)

Book Link: Gravity

Adam Prince is 18 years old, suffocated by small town life and desperate to escape the responsibilities placed upon he and his father to care for Simon, his brother and an intellectual vegetable since an accident claimed the older boy’s best friend and almost his life. Adam’s mother, overwhelmed by Simon’s disabilities and in receipt of minimal (at best) assistance from her husband and Adam, throws in her apron and heads for the city.

The story opens with Adam in the small town’s local pub, getting tanked, then stumbling outside to contemplate his life as he throws up in the street. Bullant, his best friend and confidante tries (in a bloke-like, ineffectual way) to help, but Adam isn’t ready to talk, to share his feelings, to untangle the confusion that’s twisting him up inside.

He declines Bullant’s help, gets into his ute and drives out of town, almost crashing the vehicle once then waking after having crashed it for real. He’s uninjured, without a car and in trouble with the police. Unable to deal with the fallout and needing some time to think, he takes off to Melbourne in search of his mother, intent on bringing her home.

Despite the dark start to this story, recollections of brutish injustices suffered at the hands of his brother and a series of experiences that should have elated him yet left him feeling empty, once Adam hits the city his luck changes. He lands a job, makes friends, attracts the eye of a woman who treats him like an untouchable sex-toy. He doesn’t much complain.

Interactions with his mother foster a growing sense of appreciation and empathy, interspersed with bouts of volatile misunderstanding.

Mum’s lips disappeared into her mouth. She strode across the flat and exploded. ‘I sat out there for three hours. Three hours! I couldn’t even sit in my car. You had those keys, too. Ignorant, selfish, inconsiderate child.’

She was shaking. Her words tapered to a spitting whisper and I thought she was going to hit me. I knew if she hit me, it would be over. The sorry in me had gone. Now I was buoyed by my own anger. If she hit me, I’d hit her back. Force ten. I’d break her and there’d be no going back from that. She’d go down.

Over the space of a week, Adam finds himself, his truth, his calling and his true love (though she was there the whole time). The story is nicely paced, beautifully written, illustrative of country life and layered with honest introspection and revelations. Adam is a smart kid, loyal, honest, he’s been raised well and has a strong instinct and self-motivation to act when he sees something has to be done. He is a son any parent would be proud of. I adored him, felt for him, had my throat tighten when he was struggling to find solid ground, and my heart swell when he demonstrated his instinctive altruism.

This is a coming of age story, a feel-good, hopeful tale tinged with sadness and loss, with regret and the reality that the past cannot be changed, no matter how much we wish it could. Despite this being a young-adult novel and myself somewhat older than young adult, I fell in love with this story, with Adam, with his journey to find himself. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys strongly written character drama, enriched prose and a young protagonist who is as inspiring as he is flawed.

My only criticism is the degree of personal transformation over such a short time period, and the convenience of some of the events and friendships that enabled it. However, stranger things have happened so my rating drops only half a star.

Rating: ****1/2 out of five

Back to Booktown 2008

With a name involving 'Booktown', how could I possibly resist!? I invited Tara along, a writer friend who I met through the Supernatural fandom. Despite my warnings that I would buy lots of books, she could end up being my pack-horse and be relegated to wandering aimlessly behind while I salivated over book titles, she willingly agreed to come along. I collected her from her home at 8:30 and off we went in search of the Western Freeway and an eventual turnoff (somewhere past Ballarat) to Clunes.

I had music in case we couldn’t think of things to say, but we talked so much my throat got sore. We discussed everything from amusing brother-antics to television, books, writing, travel… I’m sure we left no stone unturned and the 2 hour drive simply flew by. Before we knew it, we were in Clunes.

The town’s main street had been cordoned off, turned into an impromptu open-air mall with food stalls down the centre and a band playing country music songs. We parked and started down the hill. They were running a free shuttle bus to ferry people around to the various venues, but it was never anywhere we needed it to be, and the different points of attraction weren’t that far apart so we walked.

First stop was a bookshop. Fancy that!? *lol* Despite seeing many books that could have taken my interest, I bought only one for $8, Jackson’s Track. Tara found a book on Ewan McGregor, so we both did good!

Down the street we trundled, stopping for a quick photo of a local sign as it featured the surname of one of the characters from Supernatural. We must never forget our roots.

Around this time I discovered that the little camera I brought along was useful only as a paperweight, and not really a very good one at that. Tara immediately nominated herself as tour photographer, which pleased me greatly. These photos attest to her ability to do a good job, and again I thank her.

At the junction of the main road through town and the main shopping strip was a lady sitting behind a card table with a stack of brochures and a cash box. Uh huh. It didn’t take much intellect to figure out that there would be no free programs for these little chickens. We kept on walking.

A book stall drew me like a bee to honey (or a wasp, but more on that later), but the books sucked and we didn’t stay long. Further along, more bookstores and then a small park with food stalls. I insisted we stop to eat, because… well, it had been such a long time (2 hours) since I’d eaten breakfast and I was ravenous! I got a Tuki Burger and Tara had baked potato. So, what’s a tuki burger, I hear you say? Hmmm… yummy!! It’s barbeque trout (fish) in a sour dough roll with salad and lemon/pepper dressing. Good gosh, it’s divine. And the fish has no bones, so no chance of me choking. I was the guy’s first customer and he delivered the treat to our table (plastic picnic table on grass) and then dropped by when I was smacking my lips and licking my fingers to ask how it was. I gushed. He beamed. It was all good.

We got a chocolate fudge treat for desert wherein I was told that the organisers had experienced difficulties with electricity, and then, behind us, the coffee man’s generator spluttered and died. Everyone seemed to be taking the power difficulties with good grace though. The street had a small town atmosphere with friendly people, lots of smiles and a general sense of ease and companionship amidst a shared love of books.

While we ate, the band, with a woman in the lead, crooned out a country version of Robbie William’s ‘Angel’. It’s one of my favourite songs and they put it out on a torture rack, stretched it until it wailed, screamed, cried for mercy. It wasn’t the highlight of the day.

From there, more bookstores. Seeing a pattern yet? *lol* I lose track of what I bought where. Oh, but one little treat was a tiny alley with tressel tables, people squished in so hard I could feel them breathe beside me, and books… books… books! Needless to say, I examined every one of what they had on offer, and scurried away like a packrat with my loot. One regret, I overlooked a book, noticed it only when an older woman had picked it up and was reading the back cover. She put it back down and I (with shameless lack of hesitation), grabbed it. Then guilt settled like a weight. She looked at me. I looked at her. You know, that moment when strangers connect. I caved in, offered her first pick. We did the courteous dance for a while, but eventually I bowed out gracefully, with no book. I felt like a better person, but I didn’t get the book. *gnashes teeth* Next time, I take no prisoners!

We extended our exploration, finding books in the old town hall, the library, historic buildings that were a treat to explore even if there had been no books. At each stop, my bags grew heavier. Tara volunteered several times to carry things and eventually I took her up on her offer, then joked that if some fell out (with help), I’d never know. Coincidentally, less than two seconds after me saying that, the plastic bag she was carrying split down the side and two books popped out onto the grass. I stared, agape, afraid of my psychic power.

We continued on, books safely stashed into new plastic bags, and more being added at each stop. Eventually, wearied and needing a toilet break, we headed across the bridge in search of the bowling club, a venue we knew was holding writer’s talks at 2pm. It was just about 1pm by this point.

At the toilets, I commented that we’d not come across the CFA’s ‘nothing over $5’ stalls yet. I figured that we must have already done them but they just weren’t well signed. We went into what we thought might be the bowling club, instead to find tressel tables upon tressel tables of books. My Lord, there were books as far as the eye could see! Tara laughed. I squealed. In we both went.

Books were $1 or 50 cents. I expected to get armfuls and was wondering how to carry them all back to the car, but I ended up with only 7 or so. I must be too fussy.

Outside was a sausage sizzle. The grilled onion smell was driving us insane, so we stopped for lunch. As we ate, we were visited by wasps. At one point I made complicated airplane actions in the air with my sausage in an attempt to dissuade the marauding wasp. It worked. Then it went for Tara. *grin*

From there we went to the bowling club, listened for a while to a poetry recital by Anthony Lawrence where I discovered that I enjoy poetry when its read out loud. Anthony’s poetry had a dark mysticism, maudlin and beautiful. I could listen to him all day, entranced.

Tara and I stayed until he finished, which was only a short while because it was getting cold and we’d gotten there too late to get a seat inside, and there really wasn’t anyone speaking that we couldn’t live without hearing.

Back up the hill we went, carrying our bags, talking about books and writing. That conversation lasted all the way home, and then some. It was a great day.

Here's the loot! Well, not all of these were bought in Clunes, only about 18 of these were, but they've all been slotted into my bookshelf. Yes, these three tightly packed shelves are books I have yet to read. *contented sigh* I am such a nerd! :-D

BR: An evil cradling (Brian Keenan)

Amazon Link: An evil cradling

There is no easy way to review this book, no simple manner by which to encapsulate the brutal horror of experience that underlies it.

This is a true story, written by one man as self-confessed catharsis, among other things. It’s not a pretty read. It’s not joyful, enlightening, encouraging… it’s shocking, terrifying, disturbing. Instead of giving me insight into one aspect of terrorism, abduction by Muslim extremists so they may bring awareness to their plight and achieve a greater standard of living, it served to illustrate the sheer pointlessness of these actions. Though this book, and one man’s perceptions and interpretation of his experiences cannot be taken to be representational of all terrorists and their motivations, it painted a disturbing picture of some individuals as being poorly educated, brain-washed, fear-driven drones whose lives are in service of a God they do not understand, and whose sexual and violent impulses are basal at best.

In our present state of living under a thin static of feared terrorism, it is frightening to imagine that people like this are our enemies. They are to be pitied, yet their monstrous ability to take life is inarguable.

The author, Brian Keenan spent four and a half years in captivity. He was abducted in Beirut and held in Lebanon, passed between different groups and locations, all the while given no certainty of his release, or of his life. Some of that time he was on his own, kept in a tiny, filthy cell, fed once a day, told nothing, afforded no protection from temperature extremes, fear, the terrifying ramblings of his own mind.

He was a writer before capture, a poet and essayist, recognised and awarded for his natural talent. This natural ability proved to be both a blessing and a curse, for without a means by which to escape his own mind, he turned inwards, his imagination a cruel tormentor until he managed to grasp it, use it to his advantage, afford for himself a quieting, a reprieve from insanity.

For most of his captivity, Brian was housed with a British journalist, John McCarthy. Though both men came from different countries, had dissimilar experiences, and arguably given the unrest in Northern Ireland and the comparative peace in England, could have been at odds with each other, they bonded and relied on each other for companionship and maintenance of sanity. Often times they were kept in confined spaces, cells no larger than the average bathroom, their only provisions a mattress and whatever junk they could squirrel away and turn into games or utensils.

Their basic need for food, clothing, sanitary access, was reliant on the men who held them. Though Brian did not experience torture, in the true physical sense of the word, he was often the victim of his pride and of circumstance, and endured serious beatings, some doled out by a sadistic guard who, plagued by feelings of inadequacy and sexual repression, bolstered his manhood by inflicting pain.

The book is more introspection than action. Brian spends a lot of time thinking things through, his life, his circumstances, the greater worldview and what may be to blame for the present unrest between cultures. He is a smart man, and so is John, so when they are celled together, their conversations were deep, their reliance on each other buffered by elaborate trading of insults. It’s impossible not to care deeply for them all, and at one point they witness the beating and inhumane isolation of an American prisoner, a quiet, gentle man (already suicidal) who the guards suspected as a spy. The cruelty of the treatment and the mental fragility of the victim affects them all deeply. I, the reader, safe in my home with my dog at my side, cried. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever read.

As much as this is a difficult book to review, it is also difficult to rate. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I read it in one day and couldn’t rest until it was finished. I believe I’m a better, more informed, more empathic person for the experience and for that I am grateful. However, the increased knowledge that this book provides also dislodges an uncertain fear inside of me, the distant threat of terrorism, of disruption to my safe little world. That fear is not only selfish. It enrages my sense of a just right for all human beings, that cruelties such as this can occur. I wish common understanding would resolve it, but there is no reasoning with some people, with their beliefs, their mindsets, and this book evidences that.

Rating: ***** out of five.