Say Nothing
2018
- european world history
- troubles
- true crime
- murder
- history
- irish republican army
- abduction
- northern ireland, history
- murder, ireland
- nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction=2019-03-17
The story
“Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book — as finely paced as a novel — Keefe uses McConville’s murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga.” – New York Times Book Review, Ten Best Books of the Year From award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville’s children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress–with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe’s mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as
What it’s like
Cold, rain-grey light and the flat, understated prose of long-form reportage give this book a sober, unhurried texture, closer to a tightly edited documentary than to thriller pulp. Its sensory world is Belfast in the 1970s and the Northern Irish countryside after the peace: terraced streets, checkpoints, safe houses, a beach where bones turn up decades later. The sound is mostly voices, the quiet of kitchens and interview rooms, the gap between what people say and what they leave unsaid. Vibe: sombre, patient, quietly devastating, with a steady investigative pull that suits a focused weekend or a long flight when you want something substantial. The pacing is methodical, moving between decades and perspectives, and its emotional register stays with grief, guilt and the slow unravelling of a community's silence. Its people are grieving children, embittered former fighters and reporters who keep pushing for the truth. Intensity is high: the abduction, killings, bombings and beatings are described plainly and without gore, but they land heavily and are not gentle reading. It is for readers who want serious history told as gripping narrative, and who can handle moral darkness without relief.
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