The Darling

I have not read any other novels by Russel Banks, so I wasn't going on reputation; either my pal Anne Zald or I picked this up at ALA Midwinter and it rose to the top of my reading pile this summer. It was challenging to start but eventually so compelling that I had to finish. It is set largely in Liberia between 1975 and 1991, with some portions set in New England prior to that, and in upstate New York 10 years after that period. The plot is incredibly complicated, but revolves mainly around Hannah Musgrave, who was raised by a liberal white family, and left medical school to become a political radical. Her activities resulted in her having to go underground and assume a new name, and eventually events required her to leave the country--or so she thought. Because of her medical training, she was always able to find low level lab work and eventually she ended up in Liberia, when Tolbert is president, and marries a minor government minister, Woodrow Sundiata. She bears him three sons and becomes the opposite of what she been heretofore; where she was outspoken, opinionated and independent, now she is nearly silent and directionless. Some of this is no doubt due to finding herself part of a tiny minority of whites in a country ruled by one corrupt government after another. The CIA, Russia and anyone else interested in the diamonds and other resources of this tiny West African nation are constantly bribing and pulling strings and the ordinary people as always suffer; while those at the top become abusive in their power. Tolbert is assassinated in 1980 and succeeded by Samuel Doe, who is in turn murdered by Charles Taylor's rebels 10 years later. (I found a brief chronology here.) Although her husband survives the first coup, he does not survive the 2nd and we know early on in the book that he is dead. We also know that she abandoned her sons and a sanctuary she had created for chimps, and came back to America to buy and run a farm in the Adirondacks. What we don't know initially is why and how these things happened and that is what keeps you coming back. I was reminded of the award winning movie, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, about a group of women who finally put a stop to the killing under Taylor's regime. The incredible cruelty and violence --to men, women, children and animals--simply sets me back on my heels. The NYT Review describes the protagonist in this way, "Banks takes the risk of evoking the kind of woman whose love for animals is more passionate than her love for humans -- including her children. But he succeeds in making Hannah sympathetic, if not always likable." I couldn't agree more.