Andrew Miller (2006) The Optimists

Part One of The Optimists, begins with a quote from Fergal Keane, Season of Blood. It was Rwanda, of course, Keane was referring to. The same place politicians such as Nigel Farage want to send refugees in the British Isles. The same place Fergal Keane admitted broke him. Here we have the first line:

‘After the massacre at the church in N—Clem Glass flew home to London.’

Clem Glass, an international photographer, is equally broken. A candidate for Graham Greene’s category of A Burnt-Out Case. In modern parlance he’s suffering from PTSD. Glass is wondering how to live from day to day. Clare, his elder sister also has had some kind of mental breakdown. She has booked herself into a private hospital. His dad is living in a monastery, and asks Clem to check on her and help her out.

Clem agrees, riding on a vision of normality and doing the right thing. But he’s searching for a model of survival. Silverman filed copy, wrote the epitaph, giving an account of the mass murder and genocide of woman and children, in a church in a fictional Rwanda. The survival of a young girl, left for dead, was particularly haunting. (Keane offers a similar account.)

Part 2, has Clem leaving his sister and dad behind, flying Air Canada to Toronto. Clem is hoping Silverman can show him a way to survive. Silverman has left his wife in New York. His way of coping is good deeds—without the religion—he feeds the poor and homeless.

Clem comes home, not sure what to do about himself or his sister. He muddles on. There is some hope that the perpetrator of the genocide in the church and surrounding countryside with be prosecuted. They go and stay with his mother’s sister, who has a condemned cottage they can use. Hmmmm. If you’re optimistic enough, Read on.