Book Review: Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma
A revenge tale based on the atrocities of the South African Apartheid.
The life of Prudence Wright seemed to be abundant and picture-perfect. But a disastrous dinner on a stormy night with a new colleague of her husband threatens to bring out all the secrets from her past, which she never revealed to her family. While working as a law intern in South Africa during 1996, attending the sessions of Truth and Reconciliation hearings and knowing about the horrors of the Apartheid state, she has a firsthand experience of it. It's there she meets with Matshediso, and their lives become intertwined in complex ways. Now, when she believes she has left it all behind, it's time to confront the horrors again.
'Casualties of Truth' is the latest novel by the award-winning writer Lauren Francis-Sharma, in which she writes about how the abuses handed down by history never leave one in peace but remain as an unhealed wound. She had used her experiences in South Africa, attending the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, to weave a tale about two people who are struggling to make sense of a world in which the truth never helps to reconcile with the past. The novel explores the complexities of truth and how justice is subjective. I received a review copy of the book from the publisher Grove Atlantic through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The narrative is non-linear and flits in space and time, from the Johannesburg of 1996 to Washington, D.C., in 2018. This splitting of the narrative helps the buildup of suspense as the reader incrementally gets introduced to the complexities of the character of Prudence. This connecting of dots experience is crucial to building the narrative tension and helps the reader to empathize with the protagonist by progressively building a 'before' and 'after' comparison. The novel also includes many flashbacks, which take us back to the troubled childhood of Prudence, which further helps us to identify with her character.
Most of the novel is narrated from the point of view of the protagonist. But the author chose to do it in third person, possibly to make the narrative unambiguous to the reader. But I personally feel that a first-person narrative would have made it far more effective to convey the horrors of her experiences and the themes of the novel. While the present style benefits from building the tension when the thriller elements kick in towards the climax, overall, the novel deserves a first-person narrative. Another advantage of using that would be to cover up some of the strong biases that the writer seems to have in her worldview, which often permeates into the novel.
The novel presents some strong views that promote the use of extreme personal measures when historical injustices are not addressed by the state, including violence. While this perspective itself doesn't seem right and has the characteristics of an obsolete tribal justice system, the novel goes a step further when these vigilantes are shown as cowards who are not taking responsibility for their deeds and hiding under the obscurity provided by domestic life. It can be argued that they are flawed individuals who are overcome by a need to reconcile by violent revenge, but the novel justifies their actions every time using the flashbacks.
When such ideological issues are kept apart, 'Casualties of Truth' offers an interesting non-linear narrative played out by a few well-developed characters and enough suspense to keep its reader turning every page eagerly.