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THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST
by Richard Flanagan
Atlantic Books, April 2007
336 pages
14.99 GBP
ISBN: 1843545985


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Novelist Richard Flanagan is a multi-award winner, so obviously some of his fellow Australians like him. From what he has written in THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST it seems equally obvious that he doesn't very much like his fellow Australians.

Flanagan grabs the attention even before the beginning of the action, when he describes Jesus as 'history's first, but not last, example of a suicide bomber'. Eyebrows must surely have been raised at his dedication, too, which is to David Hicks, the Australian described by the US as a terrorist, one who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for around five years. Perhaps the author is attempting to draw parallels between his heroine, the Doll, who is innocent of the ridiculous charges of terrorism and his feelings concerning Hicks.

Gina Davies, aka the Doll, is a pole dancer at a club in Sydney's notorious King's Cross. Her main ambition is to save enough for a deposit on an apartment, a basic flat which she could transform, redecorating and employing her 'flair'. Not trusting banks with her precious money, she has a hiding place for it but regularly takes it out as she likes to emulate that well-known uncle of the comics, Scrooge McDuck, in that she rejoices in covering her naked self with hundred dollar bills.

One night, after entertaining loathsome journalist Richard Cody at the club, she insults him while trying to hail a taxi, after he proposes a method to enrich her while gratifying himself. Cody carries grudges, particularly about women who don't share his own high opinion of his masculine charms.

The Doll goes to the Gay Mardi Gras and there encounters Tariq, a man who, earlier that day, had saved the small son of her best friend from drowning. The two hit it off and retire to Tariq's flat for a night of concupiscence and cocaine. The following morning, Tariq has gone, leaving a note to say he won't be long, but he doesn't return.

Gina leaves the apartment, noticing that the forces of law and order seem to have set up barricades around the building but she's not particularly concerned about it; not, that is, until she sees herself on television described as the accomplice of a known terrorist. In fact, Tariq is no terrorist but an 'innocent' drug smuggler, employed by a Chinese criminal.

While the action begins lightheartedly enough, the continuing narrative, with Gina compounding her mistakes at every turn while Cody takes his revenge on her by identifying her and making her the subject of a story that he hopes will reinvigorate his flagging career, is gut-wrenching.

Flanagan takes every opportunity to pillory shock jocks, politicians, dirty old men who exploit girls and even the girls themselves. He drags in innumerable crimes to spice up – or is it to darken – his tale. Drug smuggling, flesh peddling, people smuggling, callous murder, all are grist for his mill. Terrorism is, of course, his major platform.

It is difficult to say if the author is attempting to deride the fear of terrorism imbued into the Australian psyche these days. He certainly makes a case for the possibility of a panic-stricken public – Sydney has been horrified by the discovery of three unexploded bombs at the Olympic Stadium – seizing on commentary from a malicious journalist to condemn an innocent. The author saves his most devastating comments for the closing chapters of the tale.

The novel is not one delivering sweetness and light to the reading public but it certainly underscores human failings and conceivable government manipulation of the population, a terrifying possibility which readers may like to contemplate for some time to come.

Reviewed by Denise Pickles, November 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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