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One for the Books by Mary Louise Ruehr

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Mary Louise Ruehr
July 13, 2007

It's good once in a while to inform one's social consciousness, so I reached for several books that represent different areas of the world. But be warned: Don't attempt them all at once. These stories pack a real wallop.

The literary beauty in this bunch is "The Lizard Cage," a novel by Karen Connelly. It is the saga of a political prisoner in Burma sentenced to 20 years in solitary confinement at the age of 25 for singing protest songs. We join him when he has been in his cell, "the teak coffin," for seven years.

His misery is complete: He is beaten often, his food is stolen, his surroundings are disgusting, his fate seems hopeless. Yet he finds an escape in his Buddhist faith, and he travels outside his cage during meditation: "He breathes in. He breathes himself out of the coffin." The only human he sees is the person who empties his latrine pail, and he befriends the insects that visit his cell. Because he's a song writer, words are what he craves the most: "Words are like the ants. They work their way through the thickest walls, eating through bricks and feeding off the very silence intended to stifle them."

It is extremely intimate. The sheer animal brutality of prison is juxtaposed with his loving, peaceful meditation. It came as no surprise to me when I read that the author is a poet. Her lyrical language describes the singer's sweet dreams and also produces memorable images of prison life, including almost unbearably brutal ugliness. It's moving, powerful, not for the squeamish and absolutely unforgettable.

"What Is the What" by Dave Eggers is a novelized "autobiography" of Valentino Achak Deng, who told his stories to the author. Eggers instills Deng's "voice" throughout the book. We meet Deng as a little boy in Africa, but we also meet the man he grew up to be and see his struggles in adjusting to life in America.

This story of the Sudanese diaspora tells how the Lost Boys of Sudan are separated from their families: When the Muslim soldiers come, they burn the Dinka/Christian villages and kill everyone they can find. The boys run for their lives and hide from the attackers, then meet up later. As hundreds of the boys walk for weeks toward a refugee camp in Ethiopia, soldiers of the Sudanese army shoot at them from helicopters, lions jump across their path and drag boys away, vultures circle overhead and crocodiles wait on the river bank for them to enter the water. And in the desert, boys go mad with thirst: "It is very easy for a boy to die in Sudan."

This moving book puts the historical problem of Sudan in clear and personal terms. All proceeds from the book's sale go to a foundation to help Sudanese at home and in America.

"This Human Season" by Louise Dean is a novel of Northern Ireland that takes us back to November 1979, to "The Troubles" between the Catholics and Protestants (Irish and English). Kathleen Moran's oldest son is a political prisoner in the H-block of Belfast's notorious Maze prison. He is part of the horrendous Irish Republican Army protest known as "The Blanket," and the prisoners are about to take their revolt to the next level: hunger strike. Kathleen's other children are eager to join the IRA as well, and they, too, could end up in prison like their brother. Kathleen is tired of feeling helpless: "You wait and do nothing thinking it won't be your son and then one day it is. Even if you just stop in and turn up the television it still comes right into your house. You're already involved, aren't you, just by living here; so you might as well try and do something about it all."

In alternating chapters, we follow her family and a former British soldier who is now a guard at the prison. This is not pretty. Everything is foul -- the language, the images, people's attitudes on both sides. The focus is close up on the characters involved, as they represent the two sides of the Irish struggle, and the reader comes away with a complexity of feelings for and against both sides.

"Enslaved: True Stories of Modern Day Slavery" is edited by Jesse Sage and Liora Kasten, directors of the American Anti-Slavery Group, and all royalties from the book's sale go to this group (www.iAbolish.org).

There are still an estimated 27 million people held in slavery around the world today. By definition, slaves "are forced to work for no pay under the threat of violence." Today's slavery appears in the form of chattel slavery, debt bondage, sex slavery and forced labor. Some are born into it, some kidnapped, some deceived with the promise of good pay and a brighter future.

The book tells eight shocking personal stories. The language is simple -- rather like reading a diary -- but very powerful. There's torture, rape, forced prostitution, brutality; one person almost becomes a human sacrifice in a voodoo ceremony. They are male, female, very young, middle aged, forced into slavery in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and, almost unbelievably, right here in America. And one slave-owner reveals how he was converted by reading books and became an abolitionist.

If you've ever asked, "Why don't they just run away?" you may find an answer here.

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What's Happening: The Friends of the Brimfield Library will hold a sidewalk book sale from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and on Aug. 4 and Sept. 8. The group will be set up outside the library in the Brimfield Plaza.

Author S. Joseph Krause will read and sign copies of his book, "Falling Out and Belonging: A Foot-Soldier's Life," at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Taylor Library in Cuyahoga Falls.

The Pierce-Streetsboro Library Book Discussion Group will meet at 6:45 p.m. Aug. 13 in the library's meeting room to talk about "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseimi.

Send book news to Books@recordpub.com.




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