Missionaires

Missionaries was recommended to me by a close friend from college. She comes from a military family and has always had an on-point bookshelf. Also, coming from a policy and politics background, she reads books that I would typically not put on my to-do list.

The story revolves around the four "main" characters: Abel, Mason, Juan Pablo, and Lisette, jumping around the formative stories of their lives that will ultimately lead them to the climax of the novel: a kidnapping in Columbia.

Here's how the WSJ reviewed the novel, which just about sums up the overarching "what" and "so what":

โ€œMr. Klayโ€™s bravura novel homes in on the ground-level consequences of American interference in Colombiaโ€™s ongoing civil war and tumultuous peace process. But the engrossing local conflict is only part of the bookโ€™s revelatory, panoramic portrayal of the remote yet interconnected ways that American-sponsored wars are waged across the globe.โ€

Such a well written novel. I never full realized just how globalized violence, in particular American-sponsored "Forever War" violence, has become and will continue to be.

One warning: The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 tells Abel's and Lisette's stories. Part 2 tells Juan Pablo's and Mason's stories. Part 3 ties all their stories together. The whiplash of having to meet new characters is real, but following through until the end of the book is worth your while.

image