An affecting dramatization of the horrors perpetrated by terrorism.
A book offers a fictionalization of the grisly execution of Coptic Christians by Islamic State group terrorists in Libya.
In February 2015, a team of masked Islamic State terrorists kidnapped 21 laborers at a construction site in Sirte. They were stripped, dressed in orange jumpsuits, and shackled in chains. All of the men were Coptic Christians, and all but one of them were from Egypt. Since no one was saved, Kelley’s (To Valhalla, 2015, etc.) rendering of the evening before their summary execution is necessarily fictionalized. In his account, the men spent much of the night anxiously discussing their fate. Some wondered if they would be offered an opportunity to convert to Islam to avoid death, and if so, if they would accept it. Others entertained the possibility that the government would mount a rescue effort. After one of the men suffers a crisis of confidence in his faith, the conversation turns to theology, and the history of Christianity, Coptic Christians, Judaism, Islam, and a brief primer on the origins of IS are all discussed. The next morning, following the execution, a fictional 16-year-old, Mekhaeil Zacharias, is spared so he can relate what happened to the world and serve as a macabre warning. The teenager, who lost both of his older brothers, hitchhikes his way back to Egypt and is eventually reunited with his family. Kelley ably sketches the historical context of a post-Gadhafi Libya, lost to the chaos of tribal factionalism and internecine war. Much of the conversation he imagines among the victims reads like a seminar in comparative religion and is, unfortunately, both a bit contrived and didactic. The depiction of Mekhaeil’s plight, however, is poignantly composed and heartbreaking. The adolescent’s natural hopefulness is inspiring, even in his bleakest moments: “I knew that each and every one of those men was hoping—and praying, probably—that I would be spared. I felt the love that they had for me, even at the darkest hour in their lives.” And the book, like Mekhaeil, powerfully assumes the role of moral witness to evil.
An affecting dramatization of the horrors perpetrated by terrorism.Pub Date: July 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4917-9657-3
Page Count: 286
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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