THE GOOD SON: Michael Gruber

A somewhat implausible thriller, though it has its moments of interest, especially when dissecting the relationship between the West and the Islamic world. The book centers on a kidnapping taking place in Pakistan by Taliban style terrorists. A group of peaceniks, hoping to bridge the gap between terrorism and the West, ignorantly travels to the outskirts of Karachi, get kidnapped, and then are ransomed for their one billionaire hostage, a clone for Bill Gates I suppose. Ironically, one of the women kidnapped is Sonia, a former circus child/performer, who, in order to get out of her closeted life, jumps at the chance to marry Farid, a wealthy Pakistania, here in America to study. She returns with him to his family in Pakistan, to their dismay, has a child Theo, who she promptly leaves, to follow a holy man in to Northern Asia. The marriage dissolves, though she returns for a time, to see her son/step family, and continue ties with Theo’s best friend, the family’s caretaker’s son.
We leave the kidnapping to follow her son Theo, who we find was a child/mujadeen, fighting the Russians, before his mother, realizing who he is, has the US govt kidnap him and return him to America. He becomes Americanized, goes to college, eventually enlists in the army, and becomes part of an elite Special Forces group. When he finds out about his mother’s kidnapping, he creates a faux crisis on the internet, with help of his cousins, alerting the CIA to the possible bomb making capabilities of the group who kidnaps his mother, hoping the US will intervene.

This ruse works, though a CIA expert, Cynthia Lam, a voice recognition expert, realizes it’s a hoax, tries to convince her superiors of its inauthenticity. Theo’s cousins realize this, disrupt her bank account, email, and deposit a large amount of money in her account , making it look as if she is working for terrorists. The CIA arrest her, interrogate her, until they realize it’s a mistake, but too late. Theo ends up heading a group who rescue his mother, but he finds that the terrorist leader is none other than his best friend, a mole for the CIA in Pakistan. No one is what they seem, clearly, and his mother has been a covert operative for many years. Theo finds this unsettling to the say the least, is retired from the Special Forces for his charade, returns to Pakistan to work for his rich relatives as security, and it ends with him meeting up with Cynthia Lam, and we are led to believe they will end up together and in love.
Much of the interest of the novel rests in the kidnappers, their torturing of Sonia, who ability to connect with her kidnappers, by being able to interpret their dreams, a some what bizarre and hard to believe quality. It is an effective vehicle to humanize the terrorists, to offer insight into their lives, to their needs and desires, their motivation. She eventually saves all but two of the kidnapped Westerners, and orchestrates the decision of who is sacrificed to the demands. She seems to be in control but is also tortured and almost dies as a result.

The book makes you wonder why we (the US and West) have ever gotten involved in this part of the world, as we end up creating only havoc, hatred, death for many of the inhabitants of these parts of the world, witness Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan. It also makes clear that though part of the motivation may be noble, there are always the other sides, those who use this war to make money, to gain power, to manipulate the lives of the ‘other.’, who do most of the suffering. Gruber understands this about as well as any writer, and uses his characters to voice these opinions, especially Sonia as she spars with her kidnappers over theory and philosophy, part of the reason Grub er has her kidnapped and become their dream’s interpreter. It’s not a great book but it did keep my interest till the end.

REBEL LAND: Christopher De Bellaigue

This a book I read with varying degrees of interest; when he was in the first personal, talking about his personal experiences with the various ethnic groups, it was interesting. When he would go off and start cataloging the history of one massacre or uprising after another, it was repetitious and not as interesting. He is an amazing individual, for his patience and perseverance in spending three years on and off in a small village called Varto, in Eastern Turkey. Before becoming interested in what happened to the Armenians and other ethic groups in the early part of the twentieth century, he lived in Istanbul, enjoying it fruits, refining his Turkish, becoming a Turkophile so to speak. The book is about how he goes beneath this superficial, even sybaritic view of Turkey, to discover the truth about its early history, its treatment of various minorities in the East, first the Armenians, then the Alevis (an offshoot of Shia, but more tolerant, human,less severe, and the Kurds. The fact that he speaks fluent Turkish allows him into the homes and offices of various people in Varto, but for the most part, he discovers they are suspicious, of his intentions, and ultimately, when they do speak, there memory is clouded by myth, forgetfulness, lies or fabrications, and fear of the past, what unearthing will bring. He finds very little of the Armenian culture left, as churches and buildings and homes have been destroyed, built over, and used as building materials for new homes. Because there has been such unrest and violence and fear, few of the three groups have gotten a long, and with the exception of the Armenians destructions in 1915 or genocide, there seems to be constant war between the Kurds, the Alevis, and the Turkish govt and its troops. The Kurds seem to be the most violent, the hardest to rule, as they continually harass the armies, for a good half of century, and to a greater or lesser degree, rebel and then coexist. None of these groups comes off very well, though the Armenians are no longer present, except in the relatives, who live in the US and Europe. De Bellaigue seems to avoid the word genocide, though he knows there has been much violence and death, whether using Turkish stats or Armenians. He is equally suspicious of both, though he seems to make most fun of the Turkish stats, their official refusal to own up to large killings. He does, however, make it clear that things were in flux at this period; that the Armenians slaughtered many Turks as well, and at times, their armies controlled large parts of Turkey before the rise of Ataturk and the establishment of Turkey. He puts the blame on all sides, really, though the Turks seem to be the most harsh, perhaps as they fought to establish a country, feared the rise of Armenia and Kurds. There govts have been intolerant of any ethnic minorities over the past 50 years, emphasizing the idea of Turkishness, refusing to admit the idea of Kurdishness or Alevis, though in fact they existed. The book ends with things better in the present then ever before, especially for the Kurds and Alevis, though the Armenians and the idea of Christianity still seems forbidden for the most part, though I read in today's newspaper that a Christian service was held for the first time today in a monastery outside of Trabazon, with over a 1000 attendees, to celebrate the birth of the virgin Mary. The Turks gave special dispensation, this once, for this to happen. The fact that it had to be 'oked' by the Turks suggests the lack of tolerance overall in this country for other religions, The book is worth reading for most Turkophiles, though I would assume someone ignorant of most of Turkish history would find it a bore. Very few people stood out in the book, though it was filled with names that are perhaps dear to the Kurds or Alevis, mostly because they were renowned for their fighting abilities.