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Spies in Canaan
A bold and unsettling parable about guilt, atonement and redemption from the winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award
Michael has travelled a long way from his boyhood under the endless skies of the Midwest. His retirement is peaceful, if solitary. But one day there is a a mysterious car on the seafront, and a package delivered. From its contents, Michael understands that he has been commissioned to undertake a final journey.
As Michael makes his way deep into a distant desert – a strange and liminal landscape that lies between hell and redemption – he undertakes another journey, into long-suppressed of Vietnam and the dying days of war, and to face a final accounting for what was done.
Taut, atmospheric and moving, Spies in Canaan is a powerful elegy to the pain of love, the guilt of old age, and the grace of atonement.
Michael has travelled a long way from his boyhood under the endless skies of the Midwest. His retirement is peaceful, if solitary. But one day there is a a mysterious car on the seafront, and a package delivered. From its contents, Michael understands that he has been commissioned to undertake a final journey.
As Michael makes his way deep into a distant desert – a strange and liminal landscape that lies between hell and redemption – he undertakes another journey, into long-suppressed of Vietnam and the dying days of war, and to face a final accounting for what was done.
Taut, atmospheric and moving, Spies in Canaan is a powerful elegy to the pain of love, the guilt of old age, and the grace of atonement.
193 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 12, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
May 3, 2022
This stellar novel is the wonderful Irish writer David Park's latest exquisite offering, beautifully written, it is a disturbing parable looking at the burden of guilt, repentence, atonement, hope and redemption. Michael 'Mikey' Miller is a midwest, small town, bookish, presbyterian prairie boy, whose many important points in his life have been reflected in books. Retired, he lives a peaceful, if lonely, life after the death of his wife, Julia. His haunted and guilt ridden past in the dying days of the Vietnam War in Saigon, which he has tried to bury deep inside, begins to re-emerge with the sighting of a strange car and the delivery of a package that contains a DVD and a brief note. After viewing the documentary on the DVD, he sets off on a journey, hoping to find answers to questions that have plagued him through time, seeking to atone for his sins, in the inhospitable desert wilderness of the Canaan Ranch, a landscape which seems far from the promised land.
A young Michael ends up working for the CIA in the absence of any longing or ambition for an alternative career, which is how he comes to be in Saigon as a naive, glorified clerk, his work including the translation of received intelligence reports. He finds a friend in aspiring writer, Corley Rodgers, who writes propaganda about the good the Americans are doing in the country. They stumble through their everyday lives in the final days of a war, lives not perceived through the printed pages and the long lens of history and its damning judgements. Horrifying events carried out by the Americans are written up by Corley, and Michael, in his efforts to win the respect of CIA analyst, Ignatius Donovan, finds his moral code brutally compromised, revelations and acts that leave both men shamed and irrevocably damaged in their perception and in the eyes of others. On his return to the US, Michael leaves the CIA and embarks on a successful career as a diplomat in the Foreign Service until he retires.
Twelve spies went to spy in Canaan, ten were bad, two were good, but who can see and identify which spy is which, given the historical turbulence and the distortions of memory? Michael encounters a much changed Donovan for whom he agrees to do a favour that may just lighten the trauma of the guilt he has carried through the years. This is a riveting read, when it comes to Park, you can rely on his use of lyrical prose and beautiful imagery. as he explores the nature of what it is to be human, the inevitable flaws, the efforts to be good, to do the right thing. Yet for virtually all of us, we will fall short of our perceived ideals and morality, at some point we too might have to enter the wilderness looking for redemption. An outstanding read that I recommend highly. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
A young Michael ends up working for the CIA in the absence of any longing or ambition for an alternative career, which is how he comes to be in Saigon as a naive, glorified clerk, his work including the translation of received intelligence reports. He finds a friend in aspiring writer, Corley Rodgers, who writes propaganda about the good the Americans are doing in the country. They stumble through their everyday lives in the final days of a war, lives not perceived through the printed pages and the long lens of history and its damning judgements. Horrifying events carried out by the Americans are written up by Corley, and Michael, in his efforts to win the respect of CIA analyst, Ignatius Donovan, finds his moral code brutally compromised, revelations and acts that leave both men shamed and irrevocably damaged in their perception and in the eyes of others. On his return to the US, Michael leaves the CIA and embarks on a successful career as a diplomat in the Foreign Service until he retires.
Twelve spies went to spy in Canaan, ten were bad, two were good, but who can see and identify which spy is which, given the historical turbulence and the distortions of memory? Michael encounters a much changed Donovan for whom he agrees to do a favour that may just lighten the trauma of the guilt he has carried through the years. This is a riveting read, when it comes to Park, you can rely on his use of lyrical prose and beautiful imagery. as he explores the nature of what it is to be human, the inevitable flaws, the efforts to be good, to do the right thing. Yet for virtually all of us, we will fall short of our perceived ideals and morality, at some point we too might have to enter the wilderness looking for redemption. An outstanding read that I recommend highly. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
June 16, 2022
I can’t recall ever being affected by a news item the way I have been about the Government’s ‘Rwanda Policy’. So many things about it upset me. No doubt worse things have happened, but I have more life experience now, and have acquired more knowledge to base my own views on.. or as a great man once said, I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
It was in such a state of misery I began David Park’s new novel, Spies In Canaan.
For those who don’t know Park, he came to some very moderate fame with his previous novel, Travelling In A Strange Land, which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year in 2020. I came aware of it thanks to a Not The Booker Nomination.
Books have that knack of clarifying the way you see the world, and such is the case with this, which, by some way for me, is the book of the year so far.
Widower Michael Miller, an elderly diplomat, is living out his life on the East Coast of America having served in Vietnam and retired from the Foreign Office with an excellent, if undistinguished, record. Lost in his thoughts a DVD arrives through the mail from someone he knew forty years before.
Following the introduction the novel then reflects back to Miller’s posting in Saigon as a junior intelligence office in the final days of the Vietnam War.
This story forms the first half of the novel, a perfectly interesting fast-moving tale of Miller and his friends, one of optimism and idealism, still seeking a negotiated settlement. The last days and weeks before the American evacuation are brilliantly and distressingly described. It is convincing and moving writing, allowing the imagination to bring the past alive.
But the DVD compels Miller into a search for some sort of redemption, for which he travels to the desert borderlands of Texas where migrants risk everything to reach the promised land.
Park has produced what in effect is a spy thriller, but in actuality is so much more; a story of innocence lost, and of the regrets and guilt that old age can bring.
With age for Miller comes change. Once a naive idealist with romantic and patriotic notions of honour, his eyes are to a degree opened in Saigon, by those he serves with. He is part of Clinton’s entourage to Northern Ireland in 1995 to negotiate the peace process. As his life proceeds he continues to question the foundations he built his early life on; who decides what is right and wrong, the good and the bad, and more specifically, America’s foreign policy.
In just 200 pages Park manages an examination into the intricacy of the human experience, a moving account of guilt resurfacing in old age. I think it has an outside chance of making the Booker Longlist, it certainly deserves to make award lists.
Just a note to finish with.. the largest contingent of the 462 refugees who crossed the Channel on Tuesday were Afghans. They will not even have their cases heard in the UK if the Government gets their way. How will we, and more importantly those closely involved, look back at this in years to come..
It was in such a state of misery I began David Park’s new novel, Spies In Canaan.
For those who don’t know Park, he came to some very moderate fame with his previous novel, Travelling In A Strange Land, which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year in 2020. I came aware of it thanks to a Not The Booker Nomination.
Books have that knack of clarifying the way you see the world, and such is the case with this, which, by some way for me, is the book of the year so far.
Widower Michael Miller, an elderly diplomat, is living out his life on the East Coast of America having served in Vietnam and retired from the Foreign Office with an excellent, if undistinguished, record. Lost in his thoughts a DVD arrives through the mail from someone he knew forty years before.
Following the introduction the novel then reflects back to Miller’s posting in Saigon as a junior intelligence office in the final days of the Vietnam War.
This story forms the first half of the novel, a perfectly interesting fast-moving tale of Miller and his friends, one of optimism and idealism, still seeking a negotiated settlement. The last days and weeks before the American evacuation are brilliantly and distressingly described. It is convincing and moving writing, allowing the imagination to bring the past alive.
But the DVD compels Miller into a search for some sort of redemption, for which he travels to the desert borderlands of Texas where migrants risk everything to reach the promised land.
Park has produced what in effect is a spy thriller, but in actuality is so much more; a story of innocence lost, and of the regrets and guilt that old age can bring.
With age for Miller comes change. Once a naive idealist with romantic and patriotic notions of honour, his eyes are to a degree opened in Saigon, by those he serves with. He is part of Clinton’s entourage to Northern Ireland in 1995 to negotiate the peace process. As his life proceeds he continues to question the foundations he built his early life on; who decides what is right and wrong, the good and the bad, and more specifically, America’s foreign policy.
In just 200 pages Park manages an examination into the intricacy of the human experience, a moving account of guilt resurfacing in old age. I think it has an outside chance of making the Booker Longlist, it certainly deserves to make award lists.
Just a note to finish with.. the largest contingent of the 462 refugees who crossed the Channel on Tuesday were Afghans. They will not even have their cases heard in the UK if the Government gets their way. How will we, and more importantly those closely involved, look back at this in years to come..
July 14, 2022
A Vietnam vet and lack lustre diplomat and part time friend to Uncle Sam via handlers at the CIA, receives a package from an old ‘nam friend, prompting the first half of the book: A proper, fairly granular accounting of his time in Vietnam, pertaining predominately to two individuals and how he came to be recruited by the CIA in Saigon, in the first place. In the second half of the novel (roughly), the memories prompt him to sojourn out in search of a question that’s been growing in his gut the entire time he’s been alive.
This was well written, with description going into the poetic and semi melodramatic at the right times. For my taste, the Vietnam section is a bit overwritten, and I always prefer a diegetic solution to people remembering things within fiction, rather than a complete digression into some other kind of perspective and narration. If it’s his story, why the hell isn’t he telling it in his own words and his memory, when ostensibly the rest of the fiction is him doing that already, right? Anyway, just a pet peeve I have.
It’s perfectly serviceable and draws out themes around disillusionment in the things young men often have, when they go off to war and eat the party line. The contrast works quite well with the narration coming from an older age, reminiscing, and the calcification of experience and knowledge accrued in later years. Then, a kind of reckoning—a search for an answer, means for possible amends—but absolution being a more complex and difficult thing to come by in this kind of story - being literary and not genre fiction in the least. It’s slow, methodical, and quite quotable.
This was well written, with description going into the poetic and semi melodramatic at the right times. For my taste, the Vietnam section is a bit overwritten, and I always prefer a diegetic solution to people remembering things within fiction, rather than a complete digression into some other kind of perspective and narration. If it’s his story, why the hell isn’t he telling it in his own words and his memory, when ostensibly the rest of the fiction is him doing that already, right? Anyway, just a pet peeve I have.
It’s perfectly serviceable and draws out themes around disillusionment in the things young men often have, when they go off to war and eat the party line. The contrast works quite well with the narration coming from an older age, reminiscing, and the calcification of experience and knowledge accrued in later years. Then, a kind of reckoning—a search for an answer, means for possible amends—but absolution being a more complex and difficult thing to come by in this kind of story - being literary and not genre fiction in the least. It’s slow, methodical, and quite quotable.
July 5, 2022
Michael Miller is a smalltown kid, recruited to the foreign office by his college professor. He is posted to Saigon in the early seventies, at a time during the Paris Peace Accord Talks leading up to American withdrawal.
Inexperienced Miller spends his days translating innocuous documents which pass across his desk. Finding friendship with Corley Rogers, a fellow American whose job is to write upbeat stories about the region for press publication back home, they spend off- duty time playing tennis at the club, as hordes of ex-pats before and after. When Miller is seconded part-time to Agent Ignatius Donovan, he becomes immersed in the murky waters of dirty war tactics and trickery. Despite Miller’s dismay at these tactics, he finds himself continuing to strive for Donovan’s approval, all the while intensifying his own self-loathing.
Now, in the autumn of his life, Miller looks back and attempts to atone for, or at least to come to terms with his past shame.
David Park’s spare, descriptive prose brings 70s Saigon to life. The sights, sounds, heat and smells, and the enormous framework required for occupation (for whatever reason) within a foreign country, difficult to mobilise but even more troublesome to dismantle, spring from the pages in the first half of this book.
The character portraits are faultless; from ingenue Miller, the unscrupulous Donavan and the hapless Corley, to pregnant Tuyen and the endangered Vietnamese workers left behind.
With a lifetime of diplomatic service behind him after Saigon, and now retired, Miller finds an unexpected link to Donovan at the Mexican border and rushes to follow it up. At this point I worried that we have become so inured to horror, that the action felt slow and Miller’s misdemeanours small, but all regrets can be worry beads which don’t wear out.
There is no comfort in the state of Donovan who appears to be on his own atonement path of sorts and while the ending is uncertain, perhaps the things Miller fails to put to rest are compensated for by the freedom he helps bestow upon a stranger.
With thanks to Netgalley UK and Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Inexperienced Miller spends his days translating innocuous documents which pass across his desk. Finding friendship with Corley Rogers, a fellow American whose job is to write upbeat stories about the region for press publication back home, they spend off- duty time playing tennis at the club, as hordes of ex-pats before and after. When Miller is seconded part-time to Agent Ignatius Donovan, he becomes immersed in the murky waters of dirty war tactics and trickery. Despite Miller’s dismay at these tactics, he finds himself continuing to strive for Donovan’s approval, all the while intensifying his own self-loathing.
Now, in the autumn of his life, Miller looks back and attempts to atone for, or at least to come to terms with his past shame.
David Park’s spare, descriptive prose brings 70s Saigon to life. The sights, sounds, heat and smells, and the enormous framework required for occupation (for whatever reason) within a foreign country, difficult to mobilise but even more troublesome to dismantle, spring from the pages in the first half of this book.
The character portraits are faultless; from ingenue Miller, the unscrupulous Donavan and the hapless Corley, to pregnant Tuyen and the endangered Vietnamese workers left behind.
With a lifetime of diplomatic service behind him after Saigon, and now retired, Miller finds an unexpected link to Donovan at the Mexican border and rushes to follow it up. At this point I worried that we have become so inured to horror, that the action felt slow and Miller’s misdemeanours small, but all regrets can be worry beads which don’t wear out.
There is no comfort in the state of Donovan who appears to be on his own atonement path of sorts and while the ending is uncertain, perhaps the things Miller fails to put to rest are compensated for by the freedom he helps bestow upon a stranger.
With thanks to Netgalley UK and Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
July 4, 2022
A subtle yet powerful narrative of how each time an empire in its Tom Buchananesque vast arrogant carelessness sets out to “fix” a country, it leaves behind tragic human detritus. The British with India, the Americans with Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan…each time the story starts and ends in the same way, with ant lines of people grabbing on to boats or planes in order to escape and then inevitably left behind. Broken, betrayed and abandoned by their purported saviours.
Have not read something so evocative in a while and maybe because I read it myself while crossing multiple borders easily, it registered even more on me that the whole world is trying to cross over into whatever their version of Canaan is, and it is not that easy in a world bent on building higher and stronger and more numerous walls everywhere.
Brilliant book.
Have not read something so evocative in a while and maybe because I read it myself while crossing multiple borders easily, it registered even more on me that the whole world is trying to cross over into whatever their version of Canaan is, and it is not that easy in a world bent on building higher and stronger and more numerous walls everywhere.
Brilliant book.
March 11, 2024
En refermant ce roman, je me suis demandée où voulait en venir l’auteur. Et puis j’ai pris le récit par la fin, et tout s’éclaire.
Canaan désigne la Terre Promise, alors pourquoi commencer avec une histoire d’espionnage dans son propre camp pendant la débâcle du Vietnam ?
Le personnage principal n’est pas le narrateur, gratte papier de la CIA dans les bureaux de Saïgon, mais son recruteur Donovan.
De Donovan, nous saurons peu de choses, si ce n’est qu’il est marié au pays mais a une liaison avec la jeune Tuyen.
J’ai aimé la logeuse de Michael le narrateur, Mme Binh qui prophétise à tous ses logés la même chose : ils ne pourront oublier le Vietnam et n’auront que des filles.
Il n’y a que deux grands mouvements dans ce roman : au Vietnam et à la frontière avec le Mexique de nos jours. Mais chaque début de partie, Michael nous raconte que lorsqu’il était enfant, il souhaitait que son père badigeonne de sang les portes pour que l’ange destructeur épargne sa famille.
Cette histoire biblique, je l’ai prise comme une volonté du peuple américain de ne pas être détruit par les hordes de migrants sensées les grands-remplacés. Une façon de se prémunir contre l’inconnu qui fait peur. Seule la méthode à changer : un mur est construit. Mais le sang est toujours versé.
Vous l’aurez compris, un roman au message politique contre une Amérique qui se barricade et qui n’accueille plus en son sein, comme elle avait déjà abandonné les vietnamiens qui l’avaient aidé en d’autres temps.
Une citation :
J’étais frappé – et je le suis encore – par la quantité d’énergie qui a dû être dépensée dans ce monde fragmenté d’intérêts divergents et de luttes de pouvoir. Que nous soyons engagés dans les dernières affres d’une guerre extrêmement coûteuse en vies humaines n’y changeait rien : il n’y avait pas d’unité en termes d’objectifs politiques ou militaires, et on laissait de fortes personnalités ainsi que des centres de pouvoir continuer à imposer une lecture des événements inspirée de leur unique point de vue ou dictée par leurs intérêts particuliers. (p.87)
L’image que je retiendrai :
Celles des documents et des vêtements brûlés sur les toits de Saïgon, entrainant des nuages de neige noir.
https://alexmotamots.fr/un-espion-en-...
Canaan désigne la Terre Promise, alors pourquoi commencer avec une histoire d’espionnage dans son propre camp pendant la débâcle du Vietnam ?
Le personnage principal n’est pas le narrateur, gratte papier de la CIA dans les bureaux de Saïgon, mais son recruteur Donovan.
De Donovan, nous saurons peu de choses, si ce n’est qu’il est marié au pays mais a une liaison avec la jeune Tuyen.
J’ai aimé la logeuse de Michael le narrateur, Mme Binh qui prophétise à tous ses logés la même chose : ils ne pourront oublier le Vietnam et n’auront que des filles.
Il n’y a que deux grands mouvements dans ce roman : au Vietnam et à la frontière avec le Mexique de nos jours. Mais chaque début de partie, Michael nous raconte que lorsqu’il était enfant, il souhaitait que son père badigeonne de sang les portes pour que l’ange destructeur épargne sa famille.
Cette histoire biblique, je l’ai prise comme une volonté du peuple américain de ne pas être détruit par les hordes de migrants sensées les grands-remplacés. Une façon de se prémunir contre l’inconnu qui fait peur. Seule la méthode à changer : un mur est construit. Mais le sang est toujours versé.
Vous l’aurez compris, un roman au message politique contre une Amérique qui se barricade et qui n’accueille plus en son sein, comme elle avait déjà abandonné les vietnamiens qui l’avaient aidé en d’autres temps.
Une citation :
J’étais frappé – et je le suis encore – par la quantité d’énergie qui a dû être dépensée dans ce monde fragmenté d’intérêts divergents et de luttes de pouvoir. Que nous soyons engagés dans les dernières affres d’une guerre extrêmement coûteuse en vies humaines n’y changeait rien : il n’y avait pas d’unité en termes d’objectifs politiques ou militaires, et on laissait de fortes personnalités ainsi que des centres de pouvoir continuer à imposer une lecture des événements inspirée de leur unique point de vue ou dictée par leurs intérêts particuliers. (p.87)
L’image que je retiendrai :
Celles des documents et des vêtements brûlés sur les toits de Saïgon, entrainant des nuages de neige noir.
https://alexmotamots.fr/un-espion-en-...
June 21, 2024
lots of guilt, sadness, regret — beautifully written: some sentences just dance for you (though did spot a few typos). grateful to have read it; it’s the type of book that makes you fall back in love with reading.
May 26, 2022
Spies in Canaan
By David Park
During the Fall of Saigon Mikey Miller is working as junior diplomat struggling to overcome his confusion and revulsion of the role of American forces in Vietnam. North Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong are closing in on the city and foreign powers are desperately trying to evacuate their own citizens and the thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese and their families who have been promised safe exit in reward for their loyalty. But Mikey is a good an honorable man. He grows more and more disillusioned by his superiors as promises are broken and loyalty is forsaken for profit.
This is a very short read, with beautifully lyrical prose. The writing style is very tight, almost dreamlike as Mikey recalls events as he witnessed them, interspersed with all his imposter syndrome insecurities and moral dilemmas.
Forty years later, there are questions he wants answered and his own soul to be searched.
"if things are allowed to happen in the far flung dark corners of the world, then sooner or later they happen in the home place"
"I start to wonder what my existence would be if even once I stepped outside the confines of a life I had predestined by making it subservient to a particular code and an unbending and fixed set of contexts that... were sometimes at variance with who I really am"
How will he vindicate all his qualms and atone for crossing the threshold of his principals?
A slow first half, but then you will not want to put it down. A sublime ending; my heart sang for joy and I had a real book hug moment.
Thanks to #netgalley and #bloomsburypublishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review
#spiesincanaan
By David Park
During the Fall of Saigon Mikey Miller is working as junior diplomat struggling to overcome his confusion and revulsion of the role of American forces in Vietnam. North Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong are closing in on the city and foreign powers are desperately trying to evacuate their own citizens and the thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese and their families who have been promised safe exit in reward for their loyalty. But Mikey is a good an honorable man. He grows more and more disillusioned by his superiors as promises are broken and loyalty is forsaken for profit.
This is a very short read, with beautifully lyrical prose. The writing style is very tight, almost dreamlike as Mikey recalls events as he witnessed them, interspersed with all his imposter syndrome insecurities and moral dilemmas.
Forty years later, there are questions he wants answered and his own soul to be searched.
"if things are allowed to happen in the far flung dark corners of the world, then sooner or later they happen in the home place"
"I start to wonder what my existence would be if even once I stepped outside the confines of a life I had predestined by making it subservient to a particular code and an unbending and fixed set of contexts that... were sometimes at variance with who I really am"
How will he vindicate all his qualms and atone for crossing the threshold of his principals?
A slow first half, but then you will not want to put it down. A sublime ending; my heart sang for joy and I had a real book hug moment.
Thanks to #netgalley and #bloomsburypublishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review
#spiesincanaan
August 19, 2022
Wildly popular with established literary reviewers, this is a good, if not great, book. My own rating is 3.5 stars.
There are themes aplenty here including: closure, redemption, morality, agency, biblical atonement (Park is big on biblical symbolism), and memory - I'm sure I'm missing another dozen.
What I liked was 1) Park's lyrical (a bit self-consciously lyrical) prose; 2) his efforts at a character study of a young protagonist who's way out of his depth, but perhaps grows over the course of the story; and 3) Park's depictions of time/place, particularly in the first half of the book set in Vietnam in 1972/73 as the Americans prepare to pull out leaving behind local folk who served them during the war. This is ripe ground for moral grayness as the protagonist wrestles with what he should do, what he can do amidst the murk and chaos, all while he's assisting an apparently amoral CIA agent.
Things come a bit unwound in the book's second half which spins into polemic and is set in the American Southwest as the protagonist now 40 years older and more reflective reunites with the former CIA agent who is now helping migrants cross the border and exchanging shots with nativist vigilantes.
Frankly, this reunion rang hollow to me and seemed more driven by the author's needs for a mouthpiece about current political issues related to the border, rather than organically occurring from character development - yes, yes, much literature is ultimately propaganda, for better or worse, but can authors temper their perspectives to let the hapless reader draw a few conclusions for themselves?
Perhaps the real story here is why the CIA agent made what looks to be a 180 degree transformation in their motivations. Interestingly, by instead making the protagonist observe the CIA agent's actions, the reader is held at one remove from what might have been a deeper story. At any rate, the story we're given has the protagonist perform the heroic deed in the American Southwest that he didn't do when he was in Vietnam 40 years earlier - closure of a sort.
There are themes aplenty here including: closure, redemption, morality, agency, biblical atonement (Park is big on biblical symbolism), and memory - I'm sure I'm missing another dozen.
What I liked was 1) Park's lyrical (a bit self-consciously lyrical) prose; 2) his efforts at a character study of a young protagonist who's way out of his depth, but perhaps grows over the course of the story; and 3) Park's depictions of time/place, particularly in the first half of the book set in Vietnam in 1972/73 as the Americans prepare to pull out leaving behind local folk who served them during the war. This is ripe ground for moral grayness as the protagonist wrestles with what he should do, what he can do amidst the murk and chaos, all while he's assisting an apparently amoral CIA agent.
Things come a bit unwound in the book's second half which spins into polemic and is set in the American Southwest as the protagonist now 40 years older and more reflective reunites with the former CIA agent who is now helping migrants cross the border and exchanging shots with nativist vigilantes.
Frankly, this reunion rang hollow to me and seemed more driven by the author's needs for a mouthpiece about current political issues related to the border, rather than organically occurring from character development - yes, yes, much literature is ultimately propaganda, for better or worse, but can authors temper their perspectives to let the hapless reader draw a few conclusions for themselves?
Perhaps the real story here is why the CIA agent made what looks to be a 180 degree transformation in their motivations. Interestingly, by instead making the protagonist observe the CIA agent's actions, the reader is held at one remove from what might have been a deeper story. At any rate, the story we're given has the protagonist perform the heroic deed in the American Southwest that he didn't do when he was in Vietnam 40 years earlier - closure of a sort.
January 22, 2024
Un roman écrit à la première personne, donnant voix au jeune Michael Miller décrivant les derniers jours de Saïgon. Les États-Unis quittent le Vietnam, il a une vue imprenable et protégée en tant que jeune diplomate au service des agences de renseignements dans lesquelles il fait office de gratte papier. Lorsque Miller est recruté à temps partiel par l'agent Ignatius Donovan, il se retrouve plongé dans la noirceur des duperies qu'engendre la guerre. Pourtant il n'a de cesse que d'obtenir son approbation tout en voyant son estime de lui chuter. On assiste impuissant à cette roue qui tourne et broie tout sur son passage. La présence Américaine se veut sauveuse au Vietnam , en Irak ou en Afghanistan mais immanquablement cela ce fini mal avec les populations civiles en grand danger qui grossiront les « boat people » tout autant que ces images plus récentes où des hordes désespérées s'accrochent aux avions. Quarante années ont passé, on retrouve notre homme aux portes de la vieillesse tenter de se réconcilier avec lui-même toute honte bue entre rédemption et expiation.
L'écriture sans fioritures de David Park dresse un portrait sans concessions des derniers moments de la vie à Saïgon avec une force descriptive impressionnante. La fin d'une collaboration, un démantèlement qui se fait dans la trahison et l’abandon de ceux qui travaillaient pour eux.
Les personnages sont essentiellement masculins et sont des caractères en opposition entre l'innocence voir la naïveté de Miller, le côté fourbe et sans scrupules de Donovan. Pourtant tout au long du livre, tout comme dans la mémoire de Miller une femme sera toujours présente, en filigrane, la belle Tuyen au destin incertain. Un superbe roman qui offre une vision d'un monde tournant en boucle, où les murs et les barbelés sont toujours plus hauts et plus nombreux. Bonne lecture.
http://latelierdelitote.canalblog.com...
L'écriture sans fioritures de David Park dresse un portrait sans concessions des derniers moments de la vie à Saïgon avec une force descriptive impressionnante. La fin d'une collaboration, un démantèlement qui se fait dans la trahison et l’abandon de ceux qui travaillaient pour eux.
Les personnages sont essentiellement masculins et sont des caractères en opposition entre l'innocence voir la naïveté de Miller, le côté fourbe et sans scrupules de Donovan. Pourtant tout au long du livre, tout comme dans la mémoire de Miller une femme sera toujours présente, en filigrane, la belle Tuyen au destin incertain. Un superbe roman qui offre une vision d'un monde tournant en boucle, où les murs et les barbelés sont toujours plus hauts et plus nombreux. Bonne lecture.
http://latelierdelitote.canalblog.com...
March 25, 2023
Seen through the eyes of Mike Miller a young, lowly-ranked man in the diplomatic service based in Saigon in the wake of the US’s withdrawal, leading to the country being handed over to the Viet Cong. Written in two parts with most of the book being about Mike’s time as a novice employee with the US government in Vietnam and how he is recruited by a more “seasoned” operative to assist in “on a needs to know basis” dealings before the city falls into enemy hands. Great writing which gave me fascinating insight into this period of history. The chaos and desperation of the time is well established. However it took me quite a few pages to make meaning of the text and resorted to reading some passages aloud so that they’d sink in. Mike is a naive, upstanding sort of guy with a mid-Western religious upbringing so he often wrestles with his conscience when faced with some of his assigned tasks. The latter part of the book skips forward 40 years with Mike leading a sedate and settled life with the past seemingly behind him until one day when a mysterious package is delivered. Its arrival results in a long road trip when ghosts of the past are stirred up.
July 6, 2022
A short novel by one of Northern Ireland's successful writers. This is an ambitious book, starting with a tale of a Mikey a young American soldier in Vietnam and an older man having seen America change beyond all recognition. I thought using 2 American's one protestant and one catholic an interesting way to explore the different religions and viewpoints. The Vietnam section and the ending as he revisits his old CIA boss and gets involved in another mission, are gripping and the Mikey thoughts and reflections enlightening. The section in the middle where his whole life is covered in a few pages works less well. I would also have liked more exploration of the women in Mikey's life, we know more about his housekeeper than his wife for example. The writing is fabulous in parts although there is a lot of religious imagery.
July 20, 2022
A short but poignant book set in Vietnam towards the end of the war there. American Mikey is a small time operator in Saigon towards the end of the war. Because of his fluent French he is called upon by Donovan to help translate during some of the ‘interviews’ with suspected terrorists. This part was one of the most uncomfortable reads ever, the menace of Donovan, he reticence but compliance by Mikey and how it impacted on the rest of their lives. Their loyalty to America was true, but the propaganda machine was very much in evidence so it was hard to know the truth. Then the evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese who helped them , leaving behind so many others who had been promised safe passage.
Fast forward to part 2 , where we see both men meeting up again and how they reconciled their lives to how they had behaved 40 yrs ago.
Fast forward to part 2 , where we see both men meeting up again and how they reconciled their lives to how they had behaved 40 yrs ago.
January 31, 2024
From the Northern Irish novelist David Park, this parable of guilt and atonement has shades of Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad, amongst others.
Mikey, a retired diplomat recieves a package which sets him of two journeys, one physical and one of memory. The memory of Saigon during the final days of the Vietnam War fills the opening section of the novel and is a beautifully written tale of loss and lost hope.
The second, literal journey takes Mikey across the American desert south to a ranch of a former colleague from those dark days in South East Asia. Here the pilgrimage is reminiscent of Conrad's trek along the Congo to find Kurtz.
"Though the sheep fear the wolves, it the shepherd who kills them." A powerful novel about pain and futility and the strength to suffer and survive both.
Mikey, a retired diplomat recieves a package which sets him of two journeys, one physical and one of memory. The memory of Saigon during the final days of the Vietnam War fills the opening section of the novel and is a beautifully written tale of loss and lost hope.
The second, literal journey takes Mikey across the American desert south to a ranch of a former colleague from those dark days in South East Asia. Here the pilgrimage is reminiscent of Conrad's trek along the Congo to find Kurtz.
"Though the sheep fear the wolves, it the shepherd who kills them." A powerful novel about pain and futility and the strength to suffer and survive both.
July 9, 2022
David Park is one of Ireland’s best new novelists and this short (188pp) of guilt, redemption and remorse has had overwhelmingly positive reviews. Set in Saigon in the last months before the American departure it examines the relationship between Micheal Miller, a small town US administrator and translator and a CIA operative, Iggy Donovan, who enlists his services in the dying days of the US occupation. That relationship is rekindled in later life on the US/Mexican border and the ghosts of the past are out to a test. A well written thriller with beautiful passages describing the sounds and life of Saigon and the struggles of an innocent young man faced with difficult moral decisions.
May 15, 2023
I do not understand how David Park is not more well known his writing is gentle and extraordinary
Spies in Canaan I read within the day
The story is raw with honesty and most likely a topic that rises conjecture within many people
Large parts of this novel may have you experiencing a heavy heart and I did smile while reading other lines.
This is a story although set in the late 60s/70 Vietnam war and closes at present day is a powerful read and leaves you thinking of the Donovans and Mikeys of today who return home from conflict
Please make no mistake this is just not a story based on the topic of Vietnam war - it goes deeper
Spies in Canaan I read within the day
The story is raw with honesty and most likely a topic that rises conjecture within many people
Large parts of this novel may have you experiencing a heavy heart and I did smile while reading other lines.
This is a story although set in the late 60s/70 Vietnam war and closes at present day is a powerful read and leaves you thinking of the Donovans and Mikeys of today who return home from conflict
Please make no mistake this is just not a story based on the topic of Vietnam war - it goes deeper
October 3, 2023
I was disappointed by this book. David Park's The Truth Commissioner is one of my favourite novels of all time - admittedly a high bar. It made me conclude a maxim I really don't like - write about what you know. Clearly Park wanted to leave Northern Ireland and move to Saigon and the American West, but it really drips with literary allusion, especially Greene's The Quiet American, who simply did this so much better. I didn't find the lead characters very engaging and the atmosphere of impending defeat has been done better elsewhere. He is a good novelist though and the link between Nam and Mexican migrants in a later phase of American history is at least interesting.
January 9, 2024
An unusual book! David Park hails from Northern Ireland and his novel tells the story of the end of the Vietnam War, and the fall of Saigon, and follows the lives of two Americans caught in the drama and tension of those final months. The book is well written and is full of literary references to various authors such F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, and Joseph Conrad. If you tend to see the world around you in terms of the books that you love, then Park's book is for you! The narrative starts in the Vietnam era then carries through the G.W. Bush presidency, and alludes to the coming of the 2016 election and the southern border aftermath. I expect to reread this book.
May 8, 2022
Atmospheric, dark, and gripping: this is a fascinating story, well written, and complex.
Mickey is an excellent character and I liked how the young and old Mickey were developed.
The description of 70s Saigon were fascinating and lively.
The plot flows and it's very sad at moments.
The author is a talented storyteller and i liked the style of writing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
Mickey is an excellent character and I liked how the young and old Mickey were developed.
The description of 70s Saigon were fascinating and lively.
The plot flows and it's very sad at moments.
The author is a talented storyteller and i liked the style of writing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
January 24, 2023
This is a beautifully written concise novel about truth and history set in Vietnam and the U.S. There is a minimal amount of dialogue. It tells the coming of age of an American intelligence officer in Vietnam at the end of the American war. The main character many years later meets his boss who has undergone a major moral change.
June 14, 2023
The narrator did office work for the CIA in Vietnam as the end of the war approached. The writing is at times quite lyrical, at other times overblown. Much is made of the moral ambiguity of the U.S. role in the world and the feckless narrator seems unable to really confront head on the harm caused by the policies he helped implement.
July 21, 2025
Heart of Darkness for our times. An elegy to loss and love, and the frailty of human relationships. The narrative remains in Vietnam in the late 60's till three quarters the way thru the book, when the seeds planted then come back to haunt our storyteller. No great redemption at the end, but a foul perhaps at peace. Wonderful read...I'm a huge fan of HoD...this is a worthy successor.
July 3, 2022
Took me ages to get properly into it, but it was worth sticking with. Great setting, gave me a lot to think about. A short book too and got better towards the end. I just prefer when I book is divided into chapters!
April 11, 2023
Starts as an historical thriller which in itself is a compelling read but then evolves into much more. The second reflective part of the book makes some eloquent sense of looking at morality and life choices as well as some observation of what is going on around us now.
August 19, 2023
FT recommendation. While Vietnam could be the core of the book, the author quickly shifts his focus to initiatory journey of a young American exposed to drama of the last few months of US presence in Saigon. Very delicate writing, a good book
June 1, 2025
I consider this text as a teaser into learning more about the course of events in Vietnam. The Deer Hunter film and maybe The A Team or Mash are my only insights into what comes across as simply put… a mess..
June 2, 2022
A fine book. Darkly atmospheric with shades of Cormac McCarthy and James Lee Burke. I’m looking forward to reading more David Park.
April 15, 2024
I just finished this book & will have to read it again. I was rushing & this book needs reflexion because it is so subtle.
June 28, 2025
Graham Greene & Conrad light...but well written, short & tantalising full of guilt.
August 18, 2023
Loved it. The story of a Vietnam vet’s current issues living with past deeds but with flashbacks to his time in S.E. Asia. Do not expect gory military details because the author does not dwell on such matters. As the blurb suggests, this is about atonement - personal and for an occupying force during a military campaign. I had to keep checking that the author is from Ireland such is his apparent knowledge of Vietnam, what went on there and also of relatively quiet lives in the heartlands (and wastelands) of the U.S.A. This is my first experience with the author but it sure won’t be my last. I have already sourced another volume and will watch out for further works by him. Many thanks for a literary treat, Mr. Park.
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