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No Other Life
When Father Paul Michel, missionary on the desperately poor Caribbean island of Ganae, rescues Jeannot from abject poverty, he has little idea of the perilous events the future holds.
216 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 1993
2 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Brian Moore
160 books169 followersBrian Moore (1921–1999) was born into a large, devoutly Catholic family in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father was a surgeon and lecturer, and his mother had been a nurse. Moore left Ireland during World War II and in 1948 moved to Canada, where he worked for the Montreal Gazette, married his first wife, and began to write potboilers under various pen names, as he would continue to do throughout the 1950s.
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955, now available as an NYRB Classic), said to have been rejected by a dozen publishers, was the first book Moore published under his own name, and it was followed by nineteen subsequent novels written in a broad range of modes and styles, from the realistic to the historical to the quasi-fantastical, including The Luck of Ginger Coffey, An Answer from Limbo, The Emperor of Ice Cream, I Am Mary Dunne, Catholics, Black Robe, and The Statement. Three novels—Lies of Silence, The Colour of Blood, and The Magician’s Wife—were short-listed for the Booker Prize, and The Great Victorian Collection won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
After adapting The Luck of Ginger Coffey for film in 1964, Moore moved to California to work on the script for Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain. He remained in Malibu for the rest of his life, remarrying there and teaching at UCLA for some fifteen years. Shortly before his death, Moore wrote, “There are those stateless wanderers who, finding the larger world into which they have stumbled vast, varied and exciting, become confused in their loyalties and lose their sense of home. I am one of those wanderers.”
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955, now available as an NYRB Classic), said to have been rejected by a dozen publishers, was the first book Moore published under his own name, and it was followed by nineteen subsequent novels written in a broad range of modes and styles, from the realistic to the historical to the quasi-fantastical, including The Luck of Ginger Coffey, An Answer from Limbo, The Emperor of Ice Cream, I Am Mary Dunne, Catholics, Black Robe, and The Statement. Three novels—Lies of Silence, The Colour of Blood, and The Magician’s Wife—were short-listed for the Booker Prize, and The Great Victorian Collection won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
After adapting The Luck of Ginger Coffey for film in 1964, Moore moved to California to work on the script for Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain. He remained in Malibu for the rest of his life, remarrying there and teaching at UCLA for some fifteen years. Shortly before his death, Moore wrote, “There are those stateless wanderers who, finding the larger world into which they have stumbled vast, varied and exciting, become confused in their loyalties and lose their sense of home. I am one of those wanderers.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
February 21, 2022
A very engaging, short novel about a black revolutionary Catholic priest, Jeannot, who is elected president by the people of a Caribbean Island, Ganae. Jeannot believes that no person should live in poverty. The vast majority of Ganae people live in poverty. They should have control of their country so that the fruits of their labour are more equitably distributed. Jeannot’s political innocence causes friction with the elite business leaders, politicians and army leaders.
Brian Moore fans should find this book a very satisfying reading experience.
This book was first published in 1993.
Brian Moore fans should find this book a very satisfying reading experience.
This book was first published in 1993.
August 23, 2007
Brian Moore is the latter 20th century's Graham Greene, a novelist consistently concerned with Matters of Faith. Like Greene, these spiritual/religious concerns are imbedded in tightly plotted, suspenseful stories. What I learned from this book is that there are saints today, that the virtue they supposedly embody can create tragedies as well as miracles, that the United States' view of What Needs To Be Done in Latin American is criminally naive. This was a bracing read.
August 12, 2011
In a key scene, Father Paul Michel's mother, devout throughout her life, but on her death-bed in Quebec, tells her son that she has lost her faith: there is no other life.
Back on the Caribbean island of Ganae, Jeannot, whom Father Michel has raised from poverty to the priesthood, seems more concerned too with people's worldly suffering than their eternal souls, bringing him into conflict with state and Church, although even he is willing to sacrifice the lives of the poor to the cause of his revolution.
Father Michel is the innocent, manipulated on all sides, looking back on "the empty pages of [his] life", rueing the missed opportunities: to have become a doctor, to have become a husband and father, to have made a genuine difference.
His mother's realization that there is no afterlife haunts the book, raising questions about what it means to waste one's life and about what it means to be complicit, along with Church and state, in other people's suffering.
This short novel by Brian Moore combines a gripping, fast-moving narrative with profound intelligence. Moore has many superb novels to his name. This is one of his masterpieces.
Back on the Caribbean island of Ganae, Jeannot, whom Father Michel has raised from poverty to the priesthood, seems more concerned too with people's worldly suffering than their eternal souls, bringing him into conflict with state and Church, although even he is willing to sacrifice the lives of the poor to the cause of his revolution.
Father Michel is the innocent, manipulated on all sides, looking back on "the empty pages of [his] life", rueing the missed opportunities: to have become a doctor, to have become a husband and father, to have made a genuine difference.
His mother's realization that there is no afterlife haunts the book, raising questions about what it means to waste one's life and about what it means to be complicit, along with Church and state, in other people's suffering.
This short novel by Brian Moore combines a gripping, fast-moving narrative with profound intelligence. Moore has many superb novels to his name. This is one of his masterpieces.
March 18, 2025
Father Paul Michel is retiring from his position as principal of the College of St Jean in the small Caribbean country of Ganae. As he reminisces, he remembers the time of Jeannot – a noir child who became a priest and the first democratically president of the nation, and whom the noirs came to see as a new Messiah. Ganae is poor. The mulatto elite prosper while the noirs go hungry. The US interferes at a political and economic level while the Vatican plays its usual colonial role of using faith as a means to prop up the ruling elite and keep the poor down. The college caters for the sons of the elite, therefore the mulattos. But now a noir has become President, Doumerge, promising to raise the noirs from their poverty and subservience. The college agrees, at Father Michel’s urging, to take some gifted noir pupils, one of whom is Jeannot, an orphan whom Father Michel takes under his wing, becoming almost a surrogate father to him. Like all previous Presidents, Doumerge slips into corruption – his plans come to nothing, the poor remain poor, the elite remains the elite, and Doumerge creates his own gang of thugs, the bleus, to enforce his rule through violence and fear while he makes himself rich. The young Jeannot, watching this, grows up with two twin ambitions – to become a priest and to foment a revolution…
This is a short novel and the language is so stripped back as to be almost bare – no frills, just straight story-telling. For the most part this works, although in the latter stages Moore expands the straight story of power corrupting to include an examination of the role of faith, specifically the Catholic/Christian belief that life on Earth is merely an entry exam for the all-important afterlife. As Jeannot struggles to destroy the existing structures and to raise the noirs, Michel first wonders if Jeannot has lost his way as a priest, then gradually comes to question his own faith.
While I quite enjoyed reading this, I felt it had some problems, not least being that it’s not as profound as it thinks it is. The story has not only been told many times, it has in fact happened – it is a barely disguised riff on the real-life career of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, priest and president of Haiti – his rise and downfall. The old story of ‘power corrupts’.
The other major problem is that Jeannot is supposed to be charismatic and a great orator. His charisma passed me by completely – I found him annoyingly shallow and narcissistic, and his temptation to present himself as a Messiah made him seem like a cult leader rather than a revolutionary – more Trump than Trotsky. And like Trump, his speeches are banal, repetitive, self-serving and duplicitous – calls to violence dressed up in an attempt to make them look like metaphors. While Trotsky’s speeches roused me (briefly) to want to take to the streets and bring down capitalism, Jeannot’s roused me to wonder why anyone was influenced by them – his ‘oratory’ simply isn’t powerful enough to convince. Were the noirs of Ganae so easily impressed? I felt only a colonial writer would have thought so. It depressed me somewhat that the mulattos and the blancs never fell for his unsubtle shtick, but the noirs did. This was clearly not Moore’s intention – he was suggesting that the extreme poverty and despair of the noirs made them vulnerable to anyone offering them hope, and it seems to be true that Aristide was seen as a Messiah by his supporters in his early days. But still, I felt it was handled clumsily and, while I know very little about the details of Aristide’s rise, I can only think he must have been a better orator and must have had at least a semblance of a political plan, unlike poor Jeannot who never got beyond ‘machete the rich’. Fun, perhaps, but not really effective as a way of eliminating poverty.
In the same way as Scottish literature can’t seem to get past the impact of John Knox’s hell-and-damnation version of Calvinism, it seems Irish literature is fixated on the evils of Catholicism. I strain to think of an Irish book that has shown any positives about the Catholic church. This one has the merit, at least, of not being about child abuse or the Magdalene laundries. However, it does show the way religion has been used through the centuries as an establishment prop. The question that comes to the fore is should the church be concerned to materially aid the poor on earth or is their role simply to prepare souls for Heaven? Again, not a new question, but I felt Moore handled it rather better than the political angle, although it always disappoints me when the solution to these moral debates ends with a loss of faith, as if that is the natural conclusion. This is not because I am one of the faithful – I am a life-long atheist. It is because I don’t believe people with strong faith lose that faith so easily. Rather, they reinterpret their understanding of their faith based on their experiences in the world. I’ve seen this book compared to Graham Greene in several reviews, and I understand that – colonialism, civil strife, Catholicism, crises of faith. But in my view, Greene handles all these questions with more depth and subtlety, and he never makes me feel the answers are easy. In this one, I felt the trajectory was obvious, in terms of both the politics and the faith.
I find I’ve been more critical of this than I intended. Perhaps that’s a back-handed compliment to it – it clearly made me think, even if only to dispute the book’s handling of its themes. I chose this one specifically because of its political angle – in retrospect, it may not have been the best one to choose as an introduction to Moore’s work. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
This is a short novel and the language is so stripped back as to be almost bare – no frills, just straight story-telling. For the most part this works, although in the latter stages Moore expands the straight story of power corrupting to include an examination of the role of faith, specifically the Catholic/Christian belief that life on Earth is merely an entry exam for the all-important afterlife. As Jeannot struggles to destroy the existing structures and to raise the noirs, Michel first wonders if Jeannot has lost his way as a priest, then gradually comes to question his own faith.
While I quite enjoyed reading this, I felt it had some problems, not least being that it’s not as profound as it thinks it is. The story has not only been told many times, it has in fact happened – it is a barely disguised riff on the real-life career of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, priest and president of Haiti – his rise and downfall. The old story of ‘power corrupts’.
The other major problem is that Jeannot is supposed to be charismatic and a great orator. His charisma passed me by completely – I found him annoyingly shallow and narcissistic, and his temptation to present himself as a Messiah made him seem like a cult leader rather than a revolutionary – more Trump than Trotsky. And like Trump, his speeches are banal, repetitive, self-serving and duplicitous – calls to violence dressed up in an attempt to make them look like metaphors. While Trotsky’s speeches roused me (briefly) to want to take to the streets and bring down capitalism, Jeannot’s roused me to wonder why anyone was influenced by them – his ‘oratory’ simply isn’t powerful enough to convince. Were the noirs of Ganae so easily impressed? I felt only a colonial writer would have thought so. It depressed me somewhat that the mulattos and the blancs never fell for his unsubtle shtick, but the noirs did. This was clearly not Moore’s intention – he was suggesting that the extreme poverty and despair of the noirs made them vulnerable to anyone offering them hope, and it seems to be true that Aristide was seen as a Messiah by his supporters in his early days. But still, I felt it was handled clumsily and, while I know very little about the details of Aristide’s rise, I can only think he must have been a better orator and must have had at least a semblance of a political plan, unlike poor Jeannot who never got beyond ‘machete the rich’. Fun, perhaps, but not really effective as a way of eliminating poverty.
In the same way as Scottish literature can’t seem to get past the impact of John Knox’s hell-and-damnation version of Calvinism, it seems Irish literature is fixated on the evils of Catholicism. I strain to think of an Irish book that has shown any positives about the Catholic church. This one has the merit, at least, of not being about child abuse or the Magdalene laundries. However, it does show the way religion has been used through the centuries as an establishment prop. The question that comes to the fore is should the church be concerned to materially aid the poor on earth or is their role simply to prepare souls for Heaven? Again, not a new question, but I felt Moore handled it rather better than the political angle, although it always disappoints me when the solution to these moral debates ends with a loss of faith, as if that is the natural conclusion. This is not because I am one of the faithful – I am a life-long atheist. It is because I don’t believe people with strong faith lose that faith so easily. Rather, they reinterpret their understanding of their faith based on their experiences in the world. I’ve seen this book compared to Graham Greene in several reviews, and I understand that – colonialism, civil strife, Catholicism, crises of faith. But in my view, Greene handles all these questions with more depth and subtlety, and he never makes me feel the answers are easy. In this one, I felt the trajectory was obvious, in terms of both the politics and the faith.
I find I’ve been more critical of this than I intended. Perhaps that’s a back-handed compliment to it – it clearly made me think, even if only to dispute the book’s handling of its themes. I chose this one specifically because of its political angle – in retrospect, it may not have been the best one to choose as an introduction to Moore’s work. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
August 10, 2020
Reminiscent of Graham Greene. Tale of a Caribbean dictatorship and two Catholic priests, one of whom becomes governor in an attempt to bring democracy to the state. Very, very sad.
April 22, 2022
Obviously based on the saga of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Moore's foray into Graham Greene territory is, in my view, a dismal failure. The character of Jean-Paul Cantave aka Jeannot, a black orphan who rises to become the first democratically elected of a poor and corrupt country, remains hazy throughout. Clearly the author would like us to share Father Michel's fascination with his pupil, but he does a really bad job of showing what's so charismatic about Jeannot. Although there's plenty of action, the plot is highly predictable and important themes get a trivial treatment.
July 5, 2024
Moore acutely explores what it means for the ethics and political justice of this life if there is no afterlife, as opposed to if there is an afterlife. And the ethical ambiguity of a great, but possibly deluded, leader who pursues justice in a situation where this will cost innocent lives. And it is a page turned. Moore is a master.
November 28, 2020
The references to Graham Greene and the Caribbean led me to this, one of the most profound books I've read in awhile. With succinct writing and a compelling story, here is a book, written 27 years ago, with messages still relevant today.
March 20, 2017
I saw some parallels with events in countries similar to the fictional country Ganae, featured in this book. Haiti is one that comes to mind, and I'm not the only one to think this.
But that doesn't detract from this book. Moore has written many books centred around religion, and this is another.
Moore is, or was a master storyteller and I've loved many of his books. This also is a good book, but I guess, for me, I didn't like the central character.
That shouldn't be a reason to dislike a book - however it was! It eroded away for me, the further I went.
Will I read other Moore novels - you bet, but I think I he's written better books.
Gee, it took me ages to spit that out - just read Brian Moore, he's a great great writer.
But that doesn't detract from this book. Moore has written many books centred around religion, and this is another.
Moore is, or was a master storyteller and I've loved many of his books. This also is a good book, but I guess, for me, I didn't like the central character.
That shouldn't be a reason to dislike a book - however it was! It eroded away for me, the further I went.
Will I read other Moore novels - you bet, but I think I he's written better books.
Gee, it took me ages to spit that out - just read Brian Moore, he's a great great writer.
February 27, 2021
Surprisingly engaging, given my low interest in its subject matter. Moving.
September 5, 2022
This novel, about a character who echoes Aristide in a country which echoes Haiti, is in the shape of a political thriller, but is really a meditation on faith and corruption.
December 18, 2010
Tightly written to capture the dubious sanity of the establishment in an unstable third world country.
Clearly inspired by the early story of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, which has rolled on quite a bit since Moore's book was published in 1993. For example, Aristide left the priesthood in 1994.
This is certainly a well paced and thought-provoking novel, reflecting the immovable unfairness of life in a poverty-stricken dictatorship.
As always with Moore's writing style, the text is terse but clear and illuminating. It would be interesting to know the evolution of the 'cinematic' effects in his writing, where scenes such as in the prison become so stylised as to be like directors notes like reading Ian Fleming.
The protagonist, Fr Paul Michel, is curious character who seems to lack a guiding philosophy and hides behind his powerlessness. Because he only vaguely confronts this (or other challenges such as attraction to the jetset wife of a corrupt junta leader), there is a slight two-dimensional feel to his characterisation. There is almost a checklist of influences, without these being working out.
In a plot where he is portrayed as having such a central influence on him, it seems unclear why he is not himself put under more pressure. Usually Michel would be journalist in such a plot line to avoid needing him to have strong opinions.
The evocative writing and interesting subject make No Other Life enjoyable to read, but the overall effect is frustrating.
Clearly inspired by the early story of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, which has rolled on quite a bit since Moore's book was published in 1993. For example, Aristide left the priesthood in 1994.
This is certainly a well paced and thought-provoking novel, reflecting the immovable unfairness of life in a poverty-stricken dictatorship.
As always with Moore's writing style, the text is terse but clear and illuminating. It would be interesting to know the evolution of the 'cinematic' effects in his writing, where scenes such as in the prison become so stylised as to be like directors notes like reading Ian Fleming.
The protagonist, Fr Paul Michel, is curious character who seems to lack a guiding philosophy and hides behind his powerlessness. Because he only vaguely confronts this (or other challenges such as attraction to the jetset wife of a corrupt junta leader), there is a slight two-dimensional feel to his characterisation. There is almost a checklist of influences, without these being working out.
In a plot where he is portrayed as having such a central influence on him, it seems unclear why he is not himself put under more pressure. Usually Michel would be journalist in such a plot line to avoid needing him to have strong opinions.
The evocative writing and interesting subject make No Other Life enjoyable to read, but the overall effect is frustrating.
January 5, 2014
I adore the early writing of Moore: "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne," "I am Mary Dunn," "The Luck of Ginger Coffey." These are brilliant, brilliant books.
"No Other Life" is not in the same league, mostly, I think, because we don't know the characters with the same depth.
Father Paul, the narrator of this tale set in thinly veiled Haiti, is mostly an enigma. Why is he in the priesthood? Why does he lack the courage to make the most of it? Why is he obsessed by Jeannot? As for Jeannot: For such a smart fellow, he's pretty clueless. A call to arms of the peasants? Did he not realize what would happen? Is this novel set in the future (there are hints that this is so), or is Jeannot a variation of Aristide (the priest president who turned evil)?
Given what we know of both, I don't buy the last frenzied motorcycle ride to the village... or their stupidity in not moving on.
I'll stick with Moore's earlier works.
"No Other Life" is not in the same league, mostly, I think, because we don't know the characters with the same depth.
Father Paul, the narrator of this tale set in thinly veiled Haiti, is mostly an enigma. Why is he in the priesthood? Why does he lack the courage to make the most of it? Why is he obsessed by Jeannot? As for Jeannot: For such a smart fellow, he's pretty clueless. A call to arms of the peasants? Did he not realize what would happen? Is this novel set in the future (there are hints that this is so), or is Jeannot a variation of Aristide (the priest president who turned evil)?
Given what we know of both, I don't buy the last frenzied motorcycle ride to the village... or their stupidity in not moving on.
I'll stick with Moore's earlier works.
November 6, 2016
Well written with good narration, capturing the oppressive history of almost every Caribbean island, written by Belfast native, residing in California & Nova Scotia (author of over 20 books). Narrator is Father Paul Michel of Quebec who teaches at a Catholic prep school on the poor Caribbean island of Ganae (1980s). In his attempt to recruit smart noir children from poor neighborhoods, Fr. Michel mentors a young orphan, Jean-Paul Cantave or Jeannot who becomes his most promising student who later studies in Europe to become a priest & strong advocate for the poor of the island. The poor revere him as a messiah & Fr Michel is concerned that Jeannot has gone too far in his liberation theology. Opposition to the young priest & his movement comes not only from the local leaders in power, but also from Rome.
May 22, 2010
I would have liked a more detailed setting, and the writing is mostly so-so, but it was probably worth reading for the story. It takes place in a country, Ganae, that is fictional but modelled on Haiti. The narrator is a Catholic priest from Canada (the nationality of the author). He finds a sense of purpose only by participating in the vision of a man who, taken by the priest takes him out of an environment of extreme poverty as a boy and given an education, becomes both a priest and a revolutionary politician. The paradox for the narrator is that religious and political responsibilities seem to him incompatible and impossible to distinguish at the same time. I thought the ending was a let-down but I'm not sure if all readers would.
August 27, 2013
A thoughtful novel which reminded me that Moore is a powerful and diverse writer who leaves wanting to read more of his impressive body of work.Set in a fictitious Carribean island Ganae ,which for me bore echoes of Haiti 's history,the plot centres on the life of a revolutionary young priest Jeannot and his Canadian mentor Fr Michel. My only frustration with the book is the fact that neither character is ever fully formed. Is Jeanot a visionary,a revolutionary,a misguided religionists or an egotist. Perhaps he has elements of all of the above. And is the older priest a weak romantisticist,a simple man of qGod with a father/son complex or a idealist with few real ideas or opinions of his own?
August 22, 2016
This is the first of Brian Moore's books that I've read and I look forward to picking up another. This was a bit of a tough go at first, but I soon got into it. If you've lived abroad and wondered at how corruption seems to infect even the purest souls, this book helps to explain how one goes from crusader to corrupted very easily.
November 12, 2023
Not my normal read but a testament to the writing of Brian Moore that I stayed with it and read over two days. Coincidentally while reading there is a military coup in Myanmar.
I revisited my review after buying another (out of print?) book on Amazon. It, like this one, is “Printed by Amazon”. A glossy type of paper is used… not a copy to cherish.
I revisited my review after buying another (out of print?) book on Amazon. It, like this one, is “Printed by Amazon”. A glossy type of paper is used… not a copy to cherish.
January 7, 2026
A tale of popular revolution led by the charismatic priest Jean Claude Catave. The story is loosely based on fall of the corrupt Duvaliers and rise of Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti. Generally interesting and engaging. 3.5 stars
November 4, 2012
Fantastic. You hear about these places where dictators rule and the citizenry rise us and it's bloody and the leaders wear dark sunglasses and decorative uniforms, and this book brings it to life with finesse and blunt force. Well done!
March 28, 2008
Moore's fictional exploration of the rise of Jean-Betrand Aristide. Well composed, insightful but in the end Aristide went a different route than the hero of this novel.
October 6, 2010
This book is a really quick read but incredible. The ending is just perfect. I think Brian Moore is secretly (or not?) an anarchist.
May 10, 2011
Not his best - doesn't measure up to The Black Robe and some of his others
November 16, 2011
Read Long Wharf when it first came out. Fascinated to look at Haiti in the news at the time. Felt he had a real take on Aristide.
April 4, 2013
I can't see how this book is rated so highly. I found it dull.
October 28, 2013
Loved it. So rich.
June 18, 2014
from my 2002 notebook: complex, thriller like, good writing that goes at a clip.
July 10, 2018
All the elements for a masterpiece are in place, but the novel remains too schematic (not fleshed out), and the political maneuverings appeared to me simplistically, even naively drawn.
February 4, 2021
A good solid novel about the rise of revolution, with some nice bits and bobs but not particularly revelatory.
More to the point it was only 200 pages, so that's a win for me thank you Brian Moore.
More to the point it was only 200 pages, so that's a win for me thank you Brian Moore.
Read
January 29, 2013Style: easy to read.
Content: weighty and thought provoking.
Content: weighty and thought provoking.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews