The Truth Commissioner
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £8.49
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- £8.49
Publisher Description
'The importance of this magnificent book is the beauty of its writing, the mastery of its telling. David Park is a great writer, that's the truth.' Gelnn Patterson
'The Truth Commissioner is a fine, crafted novel, but it is also an important book ... his best writing to date ... He sets out to examine what it means to be alive - and does so in fictions that are subtle, understated, not without a hint of menace and always courageous' Irish Times
Adapted as a TV drama starring Roger Allam for BBC 2
Henry Stanfield, the newly arrived Truth Commissioner for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Northern Ireland, is troubled by his estrangement from his daughter, and struggling with the consequences of his infidelities. Francis Gilroy, veteran Republican and recently appointed government minister, risks losing what feels tantalisingly close to his grasp.
In America, Danny and his partner plan for the arrival of their first child, happily oblivious to what is about to pull him back to Belfast and rupture the life they have started together. Retired detective James Fenton, on his way to an orphanage in Romania with a van full of supplies, will soon be forced to confront what he has come to think of as his betrayal, years before, of a teenage boy.
In a society trying to heal the scars of the past with the salve of truth and reconciliation, these four men's lives become linked in a way they could never have imagined.
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.
