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In one of the most memorable books of the year, Scott O'Connor takes his readers on a journey through the psychological fall-out of a CIA experiment gone wrong. In the 1950s, Henry March has a promising postwar career at Langley when he meets with the ultimate betrayal. As a result of an internal scandal, March is tainted (although he himself has done nothing wrong).
His only chance at redemption is being exiled to a CIA special project set in the San Francisco area, something so horrific it literally changes who Henry is. The fallout on his family, who understand nothing of what he actually does, is immense. It's also terrifying for its victims, who resurface years later to exact their revenge.
However, by that time, Henry March has disappeared into the ether. Eventually readers get to see the dramatic impact this experimentation on human subjects has had, both on those administering the drugs and studying the mind control techniques and on those who were the test subjects. When the CIA decides to clean up all its loose ends, it sends some unlikely Agency fixers, and even those hunters become the hunted.
In this "half world," paranoia rules, and nothing is as it appears. People switch sides, and everyone becomes a bad guy. Everyone becomes a victim. It's a nearly impossible feat that Author O'Connor has accomplished: He's not only created a new story in a genre where it seems every story worth telling has been told many times over, but he's also enabled his readers to see just how vulnerable anyone can be when subject to a mind-altering state, whether chosen or inflicted.
Heavy, heavy history to carry, both for individuals and for the country. This story, although fiction, is based on actual events, whose historical documentation has long since been destroyed. We can never truly know the results of the CIA project MK-ULTRA, but O'Connor has done an impressive literary job trying to imagine them for us.
§ Christine Zibas is a freelance writer and former director of publications for a Chicago nonprofit.
Reviewed by Christine Zibas, February 2014
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