Customer Reviews

Not Untrue and Not Unkind: A Novel

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I just finished reading this book and I must say that I savored every page. I first learned of it through the Booker prize longlist for 2009. The author has captured human nature in an extraordinary way - it is piercing, unvarnished and honest. The writing is powerful, strong and unique. A number of quotes in the book just stick with me. Here's one of those quotes - where the main character Owen finds himself in a awkward conversation with a co-worker of his and makes this observation: "There would be nothing I could do about it, I knew that in advance. But only in chess do people resign when they know things are hopeless. In life we use up all our pieces first."

There is an incredible atmosphere in the book - and a gritty realism that just pulls you in. I heartily recommend this book, and I look forward to Ed O'Loughlin's next one.

If you like this book, you may also enjoy Arturo Perez-Reverte's Painter of Battles. The Painter of Battles: A Novel It is about a world-weary war correspondent haunted by his experiences.

In Dublin, newspaper editor Cartwright committed suicide. His shocked friends and colleagues cannot believe it. On Cartwright's desk, one of his newspaper buddies Owen Simmons finds a package containing a New York Chronicle photo he took over a decade ago in Africa of newspaper people they worked with. Simmons knows them all, but especially the woman he loved

He thinks back to Africa in the 1990s when they covered the deadly beat of a continent in perilous turmoil. Zaire was overwhelmed with civil war as was Nigeria. However, the worst was Rwanda where the rivers turned red due to the tribal genocide.

Not Untrue & Not Unkind is a profound look back into Africa as the continent implodes with violence as seen though Simmons' flashbacks. The intrepid journalistic crew are horrified with what they witness, report and photograph as atrocities make headlines in the civilized West, which chooses mostly inertia except when economic interests are threatened. Not an easy read, aptly titled Not Untrue and Not Unkind affirms mankind's cruelty to one another as the western journalists, who cannot fathom a rational reason for the violence while also knowing what they have seen will haunt them forever.

Harriet Klausner

I'm sorry to disafree with the other reviiewers. The writing was high quality but there didn't seem to be much point to the book. I love Africa and have been to many of the sites in the book or would not have finished it. Sure there was chaeacter development but for much of the 1st half there were so many names thrown out with no reference that it was confusing. As for the death of Cartwright, it was a dangling participal. It had no connection with the rest of the book.