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A review by chomiczeq
Cokolwiek powiesz, nic nie mów. Zbrodnia i pamięć w Irlandii Północnej by Patrick Radden Keefe
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
The book is fantastic, for me it is the perfect nonfiction – absorbing, detailed, nuanced, and based on solid, reliable sources. You can see the author's enormous work to recreate the events as best as possible, present key figures, their motives, stories, often difficult to understand actions and moral dilemmas. Another advantage of the book is its extensive bibliography and 100 pages of footnotes, which are really worth looking at, because the author adds many additional things there.
For me, the last part of the book, devoted to the issue of settling with the past and remembering these events, was particularly interesting. How key activists – Brendan Hughes, Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Adams and others – referred to their actions after many years – or how they denied them, how they were affected by the crimes they committed, the hunger strikes they went on, their participation in planning attacks or kidnappings. Also how the families of victims, such as the aforementioned McConville children, dealt with the past. The author based his work on interviews, archives and recordings of interviews with participants in the conflict, and collaborated with researchers and journalists. The result is a reliable, nuanced and multidimensional work.
For me, the last part of the book, devoted to the issue of settling with the past and remembering these events, was particularly interesting. How key activists – Brendan Hughes, Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Adams and others – referred to their actions after many years – or how they denied them, how they were affected by the crimes they committed, the hunger strikes they went on, their participation in planning attacks or kidnappings. Also how the families of victims, such as the aforementioned McConville children, dealt with the past. The author based his work on interviews, archives and recordings of interviews with participants in the conflict, and collaborated with researchers and journalists. The result is a reliable, nuanced and multidimensional work.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, and War