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A fascinating novel with snapshots of modern-day Iraq, July 8, 2007
By Helen Hancox "Auntie Helen" (Essex, England) -

This review is from: Crossing the Wire (Paperback)
"Crossing the Wire" is a novel about the peacekeeping force in Iraq but is also a great deal more. Initially following the Iraq experiences of Lieutenant James Robert, the novel expands to give us views of li... More

A fascinating novel with snapshots of modern-day Iraq, July 8, 2007
By Helen Hancox "Auntie Helen" (Essex, England) -

This review is from: Crossing the Wire (Paperback)
"Crossing the Wire" is a novel about the peacekeeping force in Iraq but is also a great deal more. Initially following the Iraq experiences of Lieutenant James Robert, the novel expands to give us views of life now and previously from many characters with whom the novel interacts. There is a Christian alcohol vendor, other members of Robert's force, a suicide bomber, a nurse to a former doctor and an Iraqi woman who ends up in a relationship with Robert.
The short chapters focus on these different people interspersed with chapters about Saddam Hussein's rise to power and his life as Iraqi president. The most powerful chapter was "numbers", a one-off featuring a Jewish man who had left Iraq and who discusses briefly the history of Jews in Iraq over the millennia. The rest of the writing is also moving, showing the different lives of people and the conflicts between the Shias and Sunnis, the Americans and Iraqis, Saddam and his opponents, always an interesting read. The apparently disjointed way in which the chapters skipped to different narrators and sometimes to different times helped to give an impression of the confusion and lack of security of life in Iraq now and worked very well as part of this novel.
There is little political propaganda and no overt evaluation as to the justice of the Americans in Iraq, the book just shows the life on the ground for the soldiers and for the Iraqis. There is a small leavening of humour in the story with a soldier, Card, discussing his fictitious wife and his fear of increasing baldness but overall the book is a sombre read, displaying all the problems in Iraq and without showing any possible routes forward toward peace. It's an excellent novel, however, which leaves many open-ended questions but gives a taste of the situation in Iraq and the difficulties faced by both the Western troops and the Iraqi natives.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, www.curledup.com. � Helen Hancox 2007

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