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Review: 'The Innocent's Story' by
Nicky Singer
The world has gone crazy. Instead of
battles fought on fields with swords and horses, today enemies
plant bombs and launch missiles in civilian towns and cities.
No one is free from bloodshed, especially now the trend seems
to be to blow oneself up to make a point. Are these bombers
nuts? Are they totally insane? Or is there a reason behind the
madness? What causes them to do what they do? What induces an
individual to board a plane knowing they will force the pilot
to fly it into the tallest building in New York? What
motivates someone to tenaciously strap themselves with
explosives and calmly step onto an underground train? In
The Innocent's Story, a novel told both through the eyes
of murdered civilians and the perpetrators, Nicky Singer
attempts to make sense of the violent irrationality of suicide
attacks.
Murdered thirteen-year-old Cassina Dixon is killed by a
station bomb and narrates her experience from the dead. She
exists as a ‘para-spirit,’ invading the minds of the living
and informing us of each individual’s innermost thoughts. The
narrator’s pubescent age forces us to identify with our
protagonist and to recognise the importance of understanding
why she was caught up in the extremist actions of a terrorist.
If it could happen to her, it could happen to any of us.
Singer expertly engages our sympathies with the narrator from
the outset, so that when she ends up inside the mind of the
fanatics that killed her, we can regard their attitudes
objectively.
As Cassina moves from host to host, we recognize the injustice
of her early death and identify with her parents’ tragic
grief. This means that when Cassina moves into the brain of
Ahim - the suicide bomber that blew her up - we are forced to
acknowledge the mind-set of the terrorist. In a controversial
twist, Cassina is confused by the fact that Ahim seems to be a
‘normal human being.’ He is portrayed as a compassionate
individual with love and affection for the girl kidnapped by
Habril, his extremist role model. Furthermore, it is revealed
that Ahim does not blow himself up out of a perverse
destructive desire to kill, but because of a deep rooted
vengeance for the heartless shooting of his wife and child.
The vulnerability of Ahim to Habril’s fanatical religious
beliefs demonstrates how the suffering caused to one
individual can tragically effect us all. By providing insight
into Ahim’s family background, Singer shows that political
torment and civilian anguish in other parts of the world
cannot be dismissed in ignorance. As Habril’s mother laments,
‘if one person suffers anywhere in the world, we all have
blood on our hands.’
Thus in The Innocent’s Story, Singer gives voice not
only to the murdered civilian, but also to the suicide bomber
and the religious extremist. In some respects this reflective
approach is problematic because the account of Ahim’s
suffering seems to justify his acts of terror and thus
exonerate terrorists of blame. Singer effectively implies that
the mind of the terrorist is as innocent and vulnerable as
those killed by their actions. However, the historical insight
into Ahim’s cultural background is not sympathetic to his
violent crimes. The overlying tone of the novel encourages a
greater awareness of how extremists are indoctrinated and
conditioned to kill themselves. Consequently, the exciting
twists and turns in the plot evoke a thought-provoking story
that discerns how and why there is so much revulsion against
western ideals and values.
The Innocent’s Story is a powerful read precisely
because of its relevance to recent acts of terrorism. It is an
essential novel for the inquisitive teenager.
7/10
Caroline Sams
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