The Truth Commissioner: A Novel [Hardcover]

David Park (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2008

A novel that explores the concept of social justice in a moving search for personal and societal truth.

As Northern Ireland leaves behind a period of bitter violence, part of the continuing peace process focuses on how best to come to terms with the suffering of the past. David Park illustrates how one solution might take shape by inventing a fictional truth commission, modeled on South Africa’s TRC. Revolving around the lives of four men who are uncomfortably bound together in this communal search for healing, The Truth Commissioner chronicles the Commission’s first hearing, that of Connor Walshe, a fifteen-year-old Irish Catholic boy who disappeared and whose fate has remained a mystery. Three men are called to testify: Francis Gilroy, a newly appointed government minister and former IRA leader; retired policeman James Fenton, who recruited Connor as an informer; and Danny, né Michael Madden, then an eighteen-year old IRA volunteer, who had fled to America, only to be called back to Belfast to testify fifteen years later. Henry Stanfield, of Irish Catholic and English Protestant parentage, presides over the hearing. Selected for his neutrality, Stanfield is forced into the historic web of lies, and the truth, which is shaped by the four men’s different pasts, remains as elusive as ever. An important novel from post-Troubles Northern Ireland, The Truth Commissioner is as gripping as it is insightful and powerfully reveals a shared humanity that transcends the bitter divisions of history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this wrenching what-if exercise, Irish author Park (Oranges from Spain) invents a fictional truth and reconciliation commission (modeled on South Africa's real one) that aims to heal Northern Ireland's troubled past. Three men, all called to testify, have held close the truth about 15-year-old Catholic lad Connor Walshe's disappearance in 1990, after he was found to be a hapless informer against the IRA. Fifteen years later, former IRA leader Francis Gilroy is now the minister of children and culture; former Royal Ulster Constabulary officer James Fenton, who recruited Connor, is a restlessly retired inconvenient legacy of the past; and Michael Madden, then an 18-year-old IRA runner, has been brought back from America to recount his role in Connor's fate. Overseeing the hearings is Henry Stanfield, burdened by the unleashed emotions and uncomfortably estranged from his pregnant daughter, who is a friend of Connor's sister. Park's soulful story about buried secrets, tangled lies and manipulated memories may be a little abstract for readers who didn't follow the Troubles, but this powerful fiction both humanizes and universalizes the civil war that gripped Ireland for so long. (Mar.)
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Review

“Beautifully written, always thoughtful, and readers of serious fiction will find that it remains with them long after they have set the book aside.”   —Lincoln Journal Star

“With guile and wonderful imaginative sympathy, Park stays afloat on the most treacherous of thematic currents: the inhumanity of violence, the vulnerability of the individual before history, truth's inextricability from power, the elusive nature of redemption....The central attribute of the writing -- and it's one of the things that make this novel of Ireland of more than parochial interest -- is its conscientiousness. We're reminded that with writers like David Park, the novel can itself be a kind of truth commission.”—New York Times Book Review

“Powerful...Park humanizes all the participants but never backs away from the dark crime at the heart of the narrative—his dispassionate recounting of Connor’s ordeal at the hands of the IRA is both chilling and heartbreaking.”—Booklist (starred)

“Forceful, lyrical, and elegantly written.”—Library Journal

“Park chillingly and entertainingly envisions the entanglements of a South African–style Truth and Reconciliation tribunal in post-Troubles Belfast...the novel is fast-paced and chilling, a pleasing hybrid of literary fiction and political thriller...Intricately constructed and powerful.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Wrenching…soulful...this powerful fiction both humanizes and universalizes the civil war that gripped Ireland for so long.”—Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Big Snow:

“David Park…is a writer of consequence, lyrical, precise, comic, and serious.”—Boston Globe

“A taut, riveting urban murder-mystery. Park is a superb writer.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A closely observed tale of how transfigured landscapes and familiar yearnings converge…absorbing.” —Washington Post

“Lyric eloquence…A moving and unusual novel filled with unexpected encounters and unpredictable outcomes.”—Orlando Sentinel

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; First Edition edition (March 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596914564
• ISBN-13: 978-1596914568
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,465,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding story, September 19, 2008

By 

T. McCann - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Truth Commissioner: A Novel (Hardcover)

Some of the best writing I've seen in a while - equal to leCarre. The story is tragic, but it's a story we all need to reflect on. Some day soon. the US may need to have it's own 'Truth Commission'.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best fiction I've read this year, July 3, 2008

By 

cd (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Truth Commissioner: A Novel (Hardcover)

No real heroes or villains in this very sad story....as any based on Northern Ireland's recent history is bound to be, I suppose.

The Truth & Reconciliation Commission calls three men to testify about the circumstances leading to the death of a teenage boy. Each of these men has tried to redeem himself since his involvement with the IRA or RUC--through work, charity or love. What little suspense there is lies in not knowing if any of them will, in the end, tell the truth. The Truth Commissioner, strangely, is less interested in the truth (and less likable) than any of the guilty parties.

Beautifully written, almost poetic in its descriptions of the landscape. Now I'm off to find more by David Park.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, July 29, 2009

By 

John Brown - See all my reviews

This review is from: Truth Commissioner (Paperback)

This is one of the best written books I've had the pleasure to read in a long time. I never heard of David Park before, but I'm impressed if this is an example of his work. The story, the characters, the history, all great. As someone with a long political history of activism (some of which many would say was over the top), the way the Provisional IRA characters in particular especially the older of the two who had become a Minister in a make believe Northern Ireland government of today) remembered their pasts and tried to make sense of their present caused me to pause and reflect a bit more than I might have wanted. It is sometime dificult to get a handle on where you are at when you climbed the mountain years ago, so to speak...when the most adrenalin ridden days and the sense of urgency that came with them are gone and you find yourself living in a world which was not supposed to be.

The long history of struggle and Troubles of the people of Northern Ireland (Ireland) never seems to really end...and has largely gone unnoticed by political activists in other lands for some reason unknown to me.