Book review: A fresh perspective on reflection

Theo Dorgan's novel is an intelligent book but not too high flown; it’s an easy read that flows, revealing a character who, despite his once-off crime, is one of the good guys

Poet Theo Dorgan has just published his second novel: 'Camarade' is billed as a literary thriller.

• Camarade 
• Theo Dorgan 
• Mercier Press, €16.99 

Best known as a poet, Theo Dorgan has turned his hand to the novel for the second time having published Making Way in 2013. 

That was a voyage of discovery while Camarade is a sort of reckoning, an examination of a life defined by one act of violence. 

Getting straight to the point, the opening sentence reads: ‘All things considered, I wonder if shooting that policeman made me the man that I am?’ 

The protagonist, Joseph, from Blackpool in Cork (like Dorgan) has to go into exile after firing a single shot that injured a nasty misanthropic cop who had been persecuting him. 

But Joseph does not exactly end up in some sort of Purdah. On the contrary, thanks to contacts, he carves out an enviably civilised life for himself in Paris. It’s all coffees and cognac, books and conversation.

Joseph’s parents died in a car accident when he was a boy. 

He was brought up by his thoroughly decent grandfather, Michael John (known as Mick) who had quite a reputation as a guerrilla fighter in the War of Independence. 

He refused to participate in the Civil War as he couldn’t shoot those that he had previously fought for.

It was while fighting against fascism in the Spanish Civil War that Mick met Frenchman, Henri, to whom Joseph was sent when he needed to start a new life. 

The novel unfolds in a dual timeline: There’s Joseph’s present-day existence in Paris where he lives in a book lined apartment, and his youth in 1960s Ireland, raised on Mick’s stories of revolution.

Sometimes inclined towards ponderousness, Joseph is very much self-aware. 

He realises he can be distant and a little behind most other people when it comes to registering an emotional response to something that merits one.

In Paris, Joseph lands on his feet. He is given a lowly job in the library of the Sorbonne, but the understanding is that he can embark on his own education there, reading and analysing. 

His life in the City of Light takes in the turbulent decades of the Algerian Crisis and May ’68 where he discovers comradeship.

But Joseph is quite a solitary man. Friendships are fairly important to him but love affairs are only alluded to in passing apart from a short-lived liaison with a Frenchwoman who is quite disturbed. 

But Joseph likes women. And what is perhaps a little unusual in this novel, the men are — apart from an occasional spiteful policeman — good and decent. 

Henri is a kind of mentor to Joseph and in turn, Joseph (who ends up as a teacher of English) gives an Algerian man a useful steer in his burgeoning political career. 

It is the Algerian, Vincent, who suggests to Joseph that he write an account of his life. 

Joseph takes on this project. He is 70 years of age when we first encounter him, an age when looking back is perhaps more fruitful than projecting ahead.

The premise of writing a book about his life is interesting. It means that the reader is inside Joseph’s head at times. 

Billed as a ‘literary thriller’, Camarade certainly has tension and is well-paced. This is quite an accomplishment, given that the novel is, in ways, one of ideas and fairly introspective.

Joseph is a serious man but not without odd flashes of humour and self-deprecation. 

Early in the novel, while thinking about the book he is going to write, he scolds himself for being precious. 

‘Oh for fuck’s sake...whatever happens, for the love of Jesus, do not become an author.’ 

It’s his ‘Cork instinct’ to ‘pull down the high flown’. This is an intelligent book but not too high flown. 

It’s an easy read that flows, revealing a character who, despite his once-off crime, is one of the good guys.