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The Volunteer by Salvatore Scibona review – a bravura piece of writing

Spanning 40 years, from the Vietnam war to post-9/11 Afghanistan, this spy thriller-cum-family saga is weighty and heart-rending

Cryptically structured, glacially paced but with volcanic flashpoints, Salvatore Scibona’s new book keeps you guessing as to what it’s even about. A mix of war novel, spy thriller and family saga, set in the US, Germany and Latvia, ranging in time from the invasion of Vietnam to post-9/11 Afghanistan, it eventually emerges as a kind of 400-page backstory to its alarming prologue – a bravura piece of writing that reels you in before Scibona starts to make us sweat over his purpose.

It’s 2010 and we’re in the company of a US soldier, Elroy, a one-time jailbird and ex-addict who once got a waitress pregnant while posted to Latvia. The child, Janis, is now five and his mother is letting him go; she emails Elroy to come to Riga between tours of Afghanistan and take him to America. He arrives without a plan, and ends up – perhaps accidentally on purpose – abandoning Janis in a toilet cubicle at Hamburg airport before continuing on his way home alone.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2SMW5HV
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