Customer Reviews

The Truth Commissioner: A Novel

5 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(1)
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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'.

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.

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.

I'm alway a bit weary of these type of books, as they always seem to be designed to cartoon the Irish (bad Irish, drunks, bombers, etc) while making the British the good guys, something that any intelligent person with just a little knowledge of 'The Troubles' now knows they were anything but. This is a very intelligent read, very well thought-out thriller, but suspect people with little knowledge of the North of Ireland will find it difficult to follow, in places. That said, it deserves a large readership and stands head and shoulders over the usual garbage about the North of Ireland spewed out endlessly by a pro-British media and fellow empty-headed clowns (read any of the nonsense by Stuart Neville, et al, and you'll see what I mean).

"It's hard to think of a more skillful contemporary Irish novelist," the cover reads. If that's so, don't invest in Irish publishing houses anytime soon. As a practice, I read a novel a week. It took me four days to get through the first 50 pages. This guy writes like Tom Clancy covering Ian McEwan -- tedious, family and political corrosion. Ian Rankin's Watchman does the exact same thing Park tries to pull off, only Rankin does it quicker and more interesting.