Consequence

Consequence: A Memoir by Eric Fair
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars. This is a memoir of an interrogator in Iraq.

Fair uses an unusual first person present tense to report on his life. Unlike in Hunger Games, where the same tense made the action feel more intense and dangerous, the narration Fair uses seems removed from the subject. Each action is reported without explanation, and without a lot of emotion. It can make the narrative a bit sterile and I thought it made it seem like Fair was like a pinball: the actions and circumstances of life pushing him around without any choice on his part; he was simply reacting to these circumstances. Without revealing his thought processes, his explanations and rationalizations, i wondered if he was trying to distance or excuse his actions. But as the narrative unfolds, and as he reports about his time as an interrogator, I realized that the choice of reporting in present tense without explanations was the best way to allow the reader to come with Fair into that world. If there had been explanations, this memoir would have turned into a confessional, a justification, or an absolution. By telling us what happened in as cold of terms as possible, it takes away some of the human reflex of the reader to judge. Instead, maybe we are left to judge ourselves. What would we have done in that situation?

Fair is painfully honest, and there are more than a few impossible situations. Do you have compassion on prisoners and allow them to be released only to take American lives days later? Do you torture them and find out valuable information but lose a part of your soul? Do you torture everyone for any information? What is torture? Where is the line? Sometimes he has compassion. Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he follows rules and regulations. Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he is kind and sometimes he is apathetic. Sometimes he stands by and doesn't say anything when he sees something that is wrong. Sometimes he does say something. The thing is the consequences don't often follow logic. For example, sometimes he gets screwed when he follows the rules. Awful consequences happen when he is kind.

And then there is the reconciliation he must make with himself and God after being put in impossible situations. What does forgiveness mean? How do we forgive ourselves? We may not all be put in such impossible situations but the questions still remain for us: We are not always kind, we don't always follow rules or speak up when we should; how do we reconcile our actions with ourselves and our God? Very powerful book for not only these philosophical questions but to inform us about the realities of the Iraq war. (Full disclosure: minimal swearing, some graphic violence)

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