The Tyrant's Novel (Hardcover)

Sheriff, a reputable writer, is recruited by Iraq's Great Uncle to post a message to the world. The "sanctions" imposed by the victors of the First Gulf War have brought poverty, lack of food and water and depleted medical facilities to their country. The whims of an arbitrary government, the absolutist nature of the leaders - already a dynasty in the making, and needless casualties from a meaningless war are minimal when contrasted to the universal suffering caused by curtailment of the oil exports. Great Uncle wants Sheriff to expose this injustice through a novel depicting conditions. Sheriff, who might have been willing and able to perform this feat, is afflicted by a more personal crisis - the loss of his wife Sarah.

"Alan"? "Sarah"? This couple is close friends with Matt McBrien and Andrew Kennedy. Are these names typical of a Middle Eastern people? Keneally deftly arabesques away from pigeon-holing these people and their circumstances as "Arabs" or even Muslims. In depicting Sheriff's relations with "Mrs Carter", for example, Keneally shows the universality of a mother's grief, the shameful machinations of a government engaged in useless and costly war, and the mixed feelings of soldiers. He doesn't want to distance his characters from the reader - and the use of Anglo-Celtic names in a novel about a suffering people brings us closer to their realities.

With his vivid, expressive style, Keneally uses Sheriff to guide us through the harsh world of a despotic regime. Whatever his faults, Hussein's Iraqi people was the true victim of a higher level of despotism - trade embargoes and external demands by international agencies. Keneally describes a nation living on the edge of survival. The people may have the Great Uncle's Blue Overalls at their doorstep, but they know it wasn't the Great Uncle that cut off their drinking water or intercepted the medicines.

The reader can always rely on Thomas Keneally for stories of intense feeling and wide interest. He surpasses many of his earlier works with this modern story. That the "Coalition of the Willing" have launched a crusade against the Great Uncle doesn't reduce the value of this book. Keneally uses Sheriff to expose many facets of Iraqi life. His wit and sardonic humour are more pointed here than any previous work. Keneally's sense of justice is monumental. It's a sense to be admired - better, to be emulated. He knows there are no simple answers to human questions, and he displays that view in this exemplary book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Keneally increases the impact and universality of the story through his clever use of names. As Alan Sheriff tells the journalist, it is important for his credibility that he be like a man you'd meet on the street, which is much easier with a name like Alan-"not, God help us, Said and Osama and Saleh. If we had Mac instead of Ibn." Alan believes his "saddest and silliest story" will interest Americans, despite the fact that his country and the US are now enemies.

Through Alan's story, the reader meets Mrs. Douglas, whose nephew, not careful enough of the pH level of Great Uncle's swimming pool, was shot and hanged from the ramparts; Mrs. Carter, whose son has been missing for six years; Alan's beloved wife, Sarah Manners, an actress who has become unemployable; Matt McBride, another writer who becomes head of the Cultural Commission where he works for Great Uncle; and Louise James, an American who would like to get Sheriff to come to Texas as a visiting professor. All these characters contribute to a stunning conclusion as Sheriff tries to write the required novel.

Easily the best Keneally novel in over a decade, this serious and thoughtful novel has significant political ramifications. The characters are "ordinary people," much like the rest of us, caught in extreme situations, and Keneally builds up enormous suspense as the long tentacles of the tyrant grab everyone in their path. Though most readers will recognize the unnamed country and the tyrant, it is a tribute to Keneally that their specific identities are totally irrelevant to his themes and plot. The author makes it clear that a government's manipulation of the people's perceptions through staged events is not limited to the Third World. Mary Whipple

'The Tyrant's Novel' opens in one of the 'double-walled gulags' in the desert towns and suburbs of an unidentified country. Imprisoned within this fortress we find the novel's protagonist, Alan Sheriff, who recounts his tale of life and escape from another unnamed country that is under the grip of 'Great Uncle', a country that recently had a protracted conflict with the 'Others' and is currently straining under international sanctions. Whilst it is not difficult to unmask the countries in the contemporary international context, one of the great strengths of Keneally's novel is that the issues raised are translatable to any artist working in a state that represses freedom of expression.

It is easy to empathise with Alan, and other characters such as Matt McBrien whose survival hinges on the protagonist's decisions, in this finely crafted and extremely readable political novel. My only minor reservation - and hence the four star rating, rather than a maximum five - is that ultimately the novel appealed more to my head than my heart: I suspect that I felt somewhat emotionally detached from the characters because Anglo-Celtic names are used for them despite the novel being set in the Middle East. Whilst Keneally deliberately chose this nomenclature so that Western readers will perceive them as ordinary people in the street, it unfortunately made the characters less real and, ironically, limited rather than enhanced my emotional involvement in their plight.