They Plotted Revenge Against America – Abe F. March
I started reading this book the day before the recent swine flu scare hit Europe. It was pretty ironic timing, as Abe F. March’s novel, They Plotted Revenge Against Amercia tells the story of a group of young Palestinians who, having cruelly lost their entire families in the continuing battle between US-supported Israel and Palestine, decide to join an organisation to seek revenge. That revenge was to take the form of a virus, distributed in both the fish and poultry industries in the United States which would result in hundreds of thousands dying of flu. Of course, I was pretty much unmoved by the swine flu hysteria which the newspapers were trying to incite here, but I found the whole book quite timely.
March clearly knows about the Middle East. His biography indicates that he had worked there and it therefore made sense how he understood the reality of the battle. Sadly, we are all so influenced by the media, we are led to believe what the main media outlets want us to believe. You don’t have to read too far to start to recognise that Israel’s actions are often brutal and unjustified, and America itself hasn’t behaved in a particularly exemplary fashion over the past decades either. This is very obviously March’s viewpoint, and it came out very clearly throughout this book.
On the plus side, I was taken by the book to the extent that I had to keep turning the pages to see what happened. Spoiler alert: it is fascinating how the attitudes of the groups of young Palestinians change as they progress in the mission, particular as they themselves discover love, and start to realise that most people in the United States aren’t malicious – they are merely completely ignorant about what is really happening in the Middle East, and therefore regurgitate what their politicians feed to them. Although the teams start with a determined and unmovable sense of vengeance, even the leaders find that their resolve begins to slip as the reality of what they are doing sinks in. The slaughter of innocents is not atoned for by the slaughter of more innocents, and several of the teams begin to see that only through education and outreach can real change occur.
However, my biggest problem with this book was the style in which is was written. Right from the outset, it felt completely detached. Although I was interested in the characters, none of them felt completely human to me. The character development was shallow and I struggled to feel as they felt. This was highlighted by the awkwardness with which love and sex was described and I felt that perhaps the author ought to have left it out as it seemed clear he wasn’t comfortable with that aspect of the story. The author’s strength was in his knowledge of the political situation, and the ideas behind it. I could determine his own feelings for the tragedy of the Middle East, but there were times that the story seemed like a shadow puppet show masking the depth of feeling that the author felt towards the actual subject of the novel.
I spent quite a lot of time thinking about it, wondering whether perhaps it would have been better if the book had been written as a non-fiction, but I couldn’t see how. I understand that the growing understanding between cultures could only be portrayed through fiction because, sadly, this simply isn’t a reality yet. But for a writer who clearly has a lot to say and a lot of passion, the fictional format didn’t quite work for me.
Nevertheless it was a page turner, and it was left hanging which forced me to think about the story long after I had finished it. That alone helps it to be successful. That and the fact that I am now seeking out other, more erudite opinions on the Middle East crisis than the daily newspapers. The one point that came out of They Plotted Revenge which everyone should heed is the fact that only through education and understanding have we any hope of finding a solution. Until then, more innocent people are going to die.
Publisher: All Things That Matter Press
ISBN: 0-9822722-2-7
Date: 2009
Date Finished: 7 May 2009
Pages: 244
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I really like your review of this book. You put into words a lot of how I felt reading it, but I just couldn’t figure out how to say it. I added the link to your review in mine.