The Truth Commissioner by David Park (U.K.)

Publication date 4th February 2008



The Truth Commissioner by David Park (U.S.A.)

Publication date 4th March 2008

Henry Stanfield, the newly arrived Truth Commissioner, is troubled by his estrangement from his daughter, and struggling with the consequences of his infidelities. Francis Gilroy, veteran Republican and recently appointed government minister, risks losing what feels tantalisingly close to his grasp. In America, Danny and his partner plan for the arrival of their first child, happily oblivious to what is about to pull him back to Belfast and rupture the life they have started together. Retired detective James Fenton, on his way to an orphanage in Romania with a van full of supplies, will soon be forced to confront what he has come to think of as his betrayal, years before, of a teenage boy. In a society trying to heal the scars of the past with the salve of truth and reconciliation, four men's lives become linked in a way they could never have imagined. In a community where truth is often tribal and partial, the secret they share threatens to destroy what they have each built in the present. David Park pieces together these individual stories to create a powerful tale that transcends both time and place. Moving, insightful and utterly involving, The Truth Commissioner is an important novel from one of Ireland's greatest writers.
As Northern Ireland leaves behind a period of bitter violence, part of the continuing peace process focuses on how best to come to terms with the suffering of the past. David Park illustrates how one solution might take shape by inventing a fictional truth commission, modeled on South Africa’s TRC. Revolving around the lives of four men who are uncomfortably bound together in this communal search for healing, The Truth Commissioner chronicles the Commission’s first hearing, that of Connor Walshe, a fifteen-year-old Irish Catholic boy who disappeared and whose fate has remained a mystery. Three men are called to testify: Francis Gilroy, a newly appointed government minister and former IRA leader; retired policeman James Fenton, who recruited Connor as an informer; and Danny, né Michael Madden, then an eighteen-year old IRA volunteer, who had fled to America, only to be called back to Belfast to testify fifteen years later. Henry Stanfield, of Irish Catholic and English Protestant parentage, presides over the hearing. Selected for his neutrality, Stanfield is forced into the historic web of lies, and the truth, which is shaped by the four men’s different pasts, remains as elusive as ever. An important novel from post-Troubles Northern Ireland, The Truth Commissioner is as gripping as it is insightful and powerfully reveals a shared humanity that transcends the bitter divisions of history.