Memoir of Bernard Phelan: a 'truly terrifying story'
Three very different non-fiction books feature this week, along with two Irish crime novels.
You Will Die in Prison, Bernard Phelan, Eriu, €15.99
This is the shocking memoir of Bernard Phelan, an Irish travel agent and bar owner resident in Paris since the 1980s. He was in Iran with a tourism colleague, exploring an idea of developing the Silk Road in a way similar to the Trans-Siberian Express, taking in all of the sights from Europe to China. Iran was to be part of the route, but he and his colleague found themselves there during the protests against the killing of Mahsa Amini for not wearing her hijab. Because Phelan had travelled on his French passport, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of sedition.
In an early court case the judge told him he would die in prison. He spent 222 days in a notoriously overcrowded jail, one where executions took place regularly.
Homosexuality is not tolerated in Iran, and he felt he was playing a waiting game; if word got out that he was gay, he wouldn’t have to wait for the executioner to kill him. His 158 cellmates would do the job themselves.
His French husband kept the pressure on French diplomats, while his Irish family kept the pressure on here. Eventually he was released, and this is his truly terrifying story.
Nexus, Fern Press, Yuval Noah Harari, €21.99
How will artificial intelligence impinge on our lives in the future? Negatively, says Harari in this clever, entertaining but scary history of information systems from ‘the stone age to AI’. The most significant method of imparting and sharing information was the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press around 1440. And while one of the most prolifically printed books in those days was the Bible, it was followed hotly by a manual on how to kill witches! He kids us not.
And Harari uses this as just one tiny example of how the spread of information – and deliberate misinformation – is as old as the hills. The internet, our great and glorious information superhighway, largely changed lives for the better. But it has also been the most significant contributor to our international disease of hatred, bigotry and Schadenfreude. And there are still people out there – millions of them – who think Facebook, for instance, is marvellous. Cambridge Analytica, anyone? But I digress.
A computer, a chatbot, a piece of software, is useless as a screwdriver without a human being behind it, but that’s the problem, Harari argues. It’s the humans! The AI sharks are only one of the many cabals and there’s far more at stake than money. It’s a hell of a read. Harari is a gifted storyteller, a sophisticated thinker and this book will keep you riveted.
Finding Mangan, Bridget Hourican, Gill, €22.99
Who could resist a book that opens with a lock-in at a Liberties pub, where Shane MacGowan happens to be one of the locked-in… er… victims? Bridget Hourican was another locked-in ‘victim’ and heard MacGowan declare that James Clarence Mangan had written one of his favourite poems, ‘A Vision of Connaught in the 13th Century’.
That was in August 2008, six weeks before the global recession. And the young Hourican was to discover a flamboyant character who was Ireland’s National Poet from 1846 to 1849, though hardly remembered by anyone now. He was, however, much admired by his contemporaries, including Oscar Wilde and his brother Willie. Mangan died of alcoholism in his 40s but left a significant cache of worthy poetry behind. We think of Yeats, we think of Wilde himself and of Synge, when we remember great Irish writers of this time, but not many think of Mangan.
This book seeks to reclaim the lowly law clerk who rose so gloriously with only a primary school education. Hourican stresses she’s not writing a ‘Mangan and Me’ book, but this is no straightforward bio. It is a record of Mangan’s legacy and also a personal account of 15 years of research, to uncover the man behind the poetry that deserves more recognition than it gets. It’s a labour of love and if it’s not a Mangan and Me book, it’s pretty close, but I mean that as a compliment. A straightforward bio would not have the intimate appeal this book possesses in spades, and Hourican is a stylish and engaging writer.
Nice Weather for a Killing, Seymour Cresswell, Poolbeg, €16.99
It’s Arthur Cummins’s wedding day and he’s so anxious that he arrives in the church absurdly early, hours before the ceremony. He discovers a dead body in the church. What to do, what to do? Hide the body in the church basement is what he does! Later in the day, he hears from his fiancée Hilary. She’s decided to call the wedding off. Can things get any worse? Yes, they can. The body in the basement is discovered (again!) and because Arthur hid it, he’s now the prime suspect in a murder case.
It obviously wasn’t him, but how does he prove it?
This is not only a crime thriller, it is a funny read – don’t miss it. Richard Osman is not the only one who can make us laugh at murder. This novel is great fun.
The Bone Fire, Martina Murphy, Constable, €17.99
Achill Island features as large as any of Murphy’s characters in her DS Lucy Golden novels and this, her fourth police procedural, is set against Achill’s annual bonfire night on St John’s Eve, June 23. A rented house nestling in Slievemore catches fire and a young girl dies. Her little brother is rescued from the blaze, which transpires to be arson. The children’s mother can’t be found.
As Lucy searches for the mother, she’s aware the grandfather of these kids is a major Limerick gangland figure, and she fears an outbreak of vigilante revenge. That’s besides what Lucy is enduring in her personal affairs. Fast-moving and tense, it’s a great page-turner.
Footnotes
Murder One, Ireland’s festival of crime writing and writers, is on this weekend from Thursday 17th to Sunday 20th in Dun Laoghaire’s beautiful Lexicon. See murderone.ie for details.
The ghastly, ghostly Bram Stoker Festival is happening on the bank holiday weekend in Dublin, Friday 25th to Monday 28th. See bramstokerfestival.com for details.