First Quercus paperback edition - 2021
I think I can explain this novel (and my reaction to it) in five words - He works for the Guardian. Sam Bourne is the pseudonym of Jonathan Friedland and the novel is the seventh under this name. Whereas the previous books have, mostly, been pretty straightforward thrillers, this is more polemic than fiction. This is more or less admitted in his Acknowledgements at the end. This is a novel, but it is rooted in a bleak set of facts. The extracts from the reviews of the hardback publication further highlight the book's (only?) purpose: Sam Bourne puts female anger, vengeance and power at the centre of his latest and most exciting novel; this, then, is a topical #MeToo novel; a compulsive, zeitgeisty tale of gender politics and social media manipulation. The perfect post-#MeToo thriller. Fair enough; I should have read these comments before purchasing. If I had wanted to read about the (obviously staggering and disgusting) incidents of rape around the world, I would have bought a non-fiction book or read about it online. Moreover, Friedland's obvious 'Guardian' politics regularly rears its head. One reviewer accurately pinpoints this: a pacey, intelligent thriller set in the treacherous world of Trump-era politics...
I find the Clintons equally treacherous and corrupt; moreover, what did Obama actually achieve? Trump was undoubtedly a boor, and an egotistical unpleasant piece of work. To Friedland, the 'facts' are black and white: Trump and Obama are never mentioned, but it is obvious who he means, referring to the havoc and ruin of the last few years. Maggie Costello had been summoned to Washington a decade or so earlier - summoned by a man who insisted that idealism and realism were not incompatible foes, but allies just waiting to be fused together... but, since then, politics had been desperate for so long, one awful outcome after another...the good guys on a losing streak and all the wrong people in control... This is Friedland/Bourne's problem - there is no acceptance of the 'other side's' point of view or actions; they are simply wrong, The Guardian's world viewpoint is right. And, at present, the author is swimming with the tide; the tide of the 'elite' at any rate.
Senator Tom Harrison is the caricature of a male, pale and stale sleazeball - if Washington was a jungle, and by God it felt sweaty and foetid enough at times, this was that precious moment when the alpha gorilla (Harrison) dips his head in your direction. Naturally, Harrison has to give the famous, (and, again typically, southern Irish) trouble-shooter, Maggie Costello, a squeeze that made her jump; it's on her shoulder, but Maggie stayed immobilized for what felt like hours. She stirred only when she became aware of the damp on her shirt, where he had left his mark on her... Personal space invaded? - yes; but... Harrison's political staff are nearly all men, with few positive attributes. Maggie's first job was working with an NGO in Africa - the aid world was crawling with posh Brits. Crawling? Yet when David Cameron dared to talk about a tsunami of immigration, he was immediately shot down!
Natasha Winthrop is the #MeToo, highly intelligent and successful lawyer who might well run for the Presidency. Her official back story is brilliant; everything a Guardian reader would lap up. I want the world to be kind. For us to shout at each other a little less and to smile a little more... viz, a genuine, female, good egg. The Chief of Police, Carol Ward Tucker, is also on the right side of Bourne's viewpoint: her voice the firm, no nonsense timbre of a school principal, one that carried an unspoken warning: Don't even think of messing with me. I worked twice as hard as any white woman to get here and four times as hard as any white man. Of course she did; but that was before affirmative action. Her assistant, a pale male, has to have the nickname Ratface.
Natasha Winthrop had an appalling foster-childhood, being repeatedly raped by her 'brother'. With commendable spirit and determination she gets away and climbs the academic and legal ladder to national success and fame. However, she is living a lie. She is masquerading under another identity and she does 'murder' the perpetrator of the rapes. Bourne does have some compelling chapters on the gradual search for truth by Costello. But the end is a cop-out. Harrison (linked with a Russian-backed firm Imperial Analytica - too obviously a reference to the real-life Cambridge Analytica and its involvement with UK/USA shenanigans) has to suspend his campaign. Winthrop, on the other hand, gets out of gaol, admits only partially her background and sisterhood carrying-on, and may well still stand as a candidate. Should Maggie keep her secret, or expose it? Fair-minded people know the answer; but Friedland/Bourne leaves it in the air.
When a work of fiction becomes simply a device for polemical writing, then you may be praised by half your audience but, undoubtedly, scorned by the other half. Friedland's left-wing journalism trumped his (natural) ability to write a good thriller. I shall read the reviews/comments about his next work before I decide to purchase it.
No comments:
Post a Comment