Review: Viareggio by Paul Kestell
Author House, €25.05
The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates is attributed with the often quoted: "the unexamined life is not worth living".
It suggests the view that a person who does not examine their life, relationships, thoughts and actions may be wasting their stay here on earth. Rather than taking it at face value, a critical analysis of a life's meaning and purpose seems a worthwhile project. Succinctly, the wisdom urges self-knowledge, "Know Thyself". But can introspection drive a person crazy? Is it possible that self-analysis, by implication a journey undertaken alone, may steer a person into dangerous, uncharted waters that drown their spirit? Is ignorance bliss? Further, is a creative mind more at risk as the real and imaginary do duel to produce a precious work of art?
Viareggio, the debut novel from the pen of Irish writer Paul Kestell, presents the story of a man's struggle with his mortality after a heart bypass operation. Of course, there is nothing quite like a close shave with death to focus the mind resolutely on the unsavoury matter of mortality. Kestell's hero, Stephen, takes Socrates' wisdom to heart, pardon the pun, as he embarks on an exhaustive journey of self-analysis.
The novel is set in beautiful Tuscany. It is an ideal choice of location for Stephen to recuperate after his operation and to galvanise him into writing his novel. He chooses the backdrop of the bustling coastal town of Viareggio to background his story. "Viareggio at night stimulated my imagination almost beyond control." The travelogue of Stephen and his wife Lucia provides some light relief for the reader as the story proceeds, but more importantly it is the source from which he draws his characters as he endeavours to compose a modern thriller in his head.
He gathers an array of amazing characters from the world stage of criminality and ecclesiastical power -- the IRA, the Mafia and high-ranking Church officials from a smattering of European countries take centre stage in a story that also involves the CIA, FBI and MI5, with a persistent blurring of lines between the good and the bad. The characters are deluded, cruel, violent, self-serving and despicable miscreants with grandiose titles and ideals.
The main players include the Irish contingent of Eva Devlin, from south Armagh, her priest lover Fr James Burdon and their offspring Toby, as well as a lay preacher who performs miracles and Fr Matthew Cryan; the Italians are represented by Don Dino Bernado, his henchman Gregor and arch-enemy Don Maestrino Giordano, his loyal servant Raymond, son Philippe, daughter Monica; the American connection is to the fore with Steve Gardiner, once of the NYPD, a searcher for missing children, his long-suffering friend and colleague Joe Bateman, and Robert Quinn and Jack Kellerman, who just might be the FBI; and finally the voice of the English is ever present with Cap- tain Edward Boyce, an MI5 agent of 37 years' standing.
The novel has far-reaching roots: first, in Northern Ireland when it was in the grip of the Troubles and the book necessarily features in graphic detail a sampling of the atrocities carried out at that time; second, over in Italy, a fascist movement which had strong religious underpinnings, sought to prolong the Third Reich and "aimed to overthrow every single government in the world" to make it "a better place, with more order, less of this racial mix that causes such discord".
This movement had its plans thwarted when some of its key players were taken out but it was reborn with new zealous leaders, namely, Cardinal Drozdan, a Croat, Monsignor Arguelles, a Spaniard, and the French Fr Marie Abele, parish priest of Cucuron. In addition, both Edward Boyce and Steve Gardiner have been entrusted with a special mission. And finally, the Mafia's involvement is intricately interwoven throughout the unfolding story as a glue that binds all the protagonists.
Not surprisingly, Stephen lives in turmoil as he struggles to write his magnum opus while engaging in a scrupulous reconnaissance of his life. At times, he appears to be a demented soul living out his days in a haze of drugs in the aftermath of his operation. He fights a battle for the survival of his spirit as the imagination and the real world wreak havoc. "I am morose since my surgery, not the same person at all, tired and irritable all the time. Every day I live, I think I am about to die. I am obsessed with death and all that goes with it."
This is an ambitious novel that understandably took three years to write and, consequently, there is an overwhelming sense that a life in its totality has been compressed between its 300-plus pages together with a complex, dark thriller of innovative intrigue with a rewarding twist at the end.
Above all, it is an honest novel which avoids sanitising or spiritualising into oblivion the downright awfulness of illness and death -- the two companions of every life.
- Angela M Cornyn
Originally published in
