An Evil Cradling (by Brian Keenan)

Although I probably heard the name of Brian Keenan in the late 1980s when he was a hostage in Lebanon, it’s not a name I recalled. I would almost certainly never have come across his book - nor picked it up if I had spotted it somewhere - if it weren’t for a reading group I joined recently. Their aim is to read books outside our usual preferred genres, and, where possible, to choose books written in different cultures.

This month, the first meeting after the Cyprus lockdown, the choice was Keenan’s autobiographical account of his captivity, ‘An Evil Cradling’. I started reading it a few days ago with some apprehension.The cover is not at all appealing. Moreover, I don’t like gruesome accounts of torture, and my knowledge of politics is limited. I expected to find myself skimming.

Instead I found myself compulsively reading every moment I could, determined to finish this incredible book before the meeting, and not wanting to miss a word. It’s not that the story itself is inherently interesting; the author and his cellmate John McCarthy were locked up for over four years, mostly in small cells with nothing to do. Yet Brian Keenan turns this mind-numbing, horrifying experience into a very readable account. It’s tinged with black humour here and there, and a great deal of reflection and self-examination as he observes himself and his reactions, determined to stay strong.

Brian Keenan was a young and idealistic teacher from Ireland when he went out to Beirut to teach English in 1985. The start of the book gives a brief background to his life, and then a quick outline of his first few months in Lebanon. He is clearly a gregarious person; he made friends, ate meals with people, and explored his environment. Unlike some of his more cautious colleagues he didn’t live on the university campus but in a villa nearby. There were plenty of outbreaks of violence and some kidnappings, but they didn’t worry him too much. After all, he had come from Ireland, at a time where there was significant unrest and political violence.

Then he was captured by fundamentalists on his way to work, and taken to a prison cell that was smaller than most bathrooms. He didn’t think he would be there for long; he felt that his captors had made a mistake, and kept insisting that he was not English but Irish. He thought it might be a couple of weeks before arrangements were made to free him…

In the event it was over four years. And the bulk of the book looks at what his life was like in that time. For the first year or so the problem is mostly psychological and emotional. Nobody knows where he is, and he becomes extremely bored. He worries that he is descending into madness at times. When the beatings start he is able to write about it from the perspective of his soul, aware of the horrendous pain but mostly able to rise above it emotionally.

Part of Keenan’s sanity was preserved by the fact that he had a cellmate for much of his imprisonment, the journalist John McCarthy. While very different in background and upbringing, the two evolved a close friendship, with both support and teasing, humour and acceptance

It’s an incredible story, told with compassion and honesty, exceptionally well written. Some of the author’s sufferings - as when transported from place to place - make horrendous reading. Yet I didn’t hold back from reading; the descriptions somehow manage to stimulate the imagination while avoiding any goriness; they are harrowing at times, but never gratuitous.

I don’t know if I’ll read this book again, but I’m glad that I did. I now know far more about the conditions of hostages than I could ever have imagined, and am sure I won’t forget. I would recommend this book to anyone - the writing and language used is superb (notwithstanding some ‘strong’ language used, mostly under extreme circumstances) and despite the traumatic nature of the experience, the story is oddly encouraging.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews