The Hired Man. By Aminatta Forna

The Hired Man

Aminatta Forna

Bloomsbury. First published 2013.

Aminatta Forna is (probably) of Sierra Leonian origin, born in Scotland, and brought up in Sierra Leone and other Asian and African countries, but not in Eastern Europe - Croatia - where this book is set. 

It deals with a Croat trying to come to terms with some of the awful things he witnessed and also did in his immediate past. The story begins in the aftermath of the complicated and multi-cornered civil war in which five or six ethnic groups (Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians...) all fought each other, massacring non-combatant groups, and generally behaving as if they were primitive tribes belonging to 10,000 BCE. The result, of course, was the 'Balkanisation' of, well, the Balkans. Former Yugoslavia is now four different countries and maybe as many 'autonomous' regions within those countries. Croatia fought its war mainly with Serbia. 

The book is set in the fictitious town of Gost in Croatia, which has seen its share of the horrors, and now, when they are nearly over, there is not much energy in its residents to try and rebuild their civilisation. Many have left, and those who remain are either old, or predatory. Into this psychologically and physically destroyed landscape arrives an English family - mother, son and daughter, father to follow later. They buy a house that is nearly falling down and set about trying to renew it. To help them they hire Duro, the narrator of the story, as a painter, fixer and, as it turns out, security man. Duro is trying to extinguish anger and despair from within him, which are a consequence of the memories of his childhood, and the way the subsequent decade turned his friends into fiends, or victims. He himself was not untouched by the tribalism, and, in presumed revenge for the murder of his friends' parents, and attempts to rape another of his friends, he shoots and kills, in cold blood, some soldiers, who may or may not have assisted in the brutalities. Duro's interactions with the English family, the way he wholeheartedly assists their efforts at rebuilding, the way helps the daughter uncover a mosaic mural which was deliberately plastered over the by the former owner of the house, the way he takes them to the seaside and to a picnic in a secret place in the mountains, the way he watches over them and prevents at least one open attempt to terrorize them, all this helps his wounded psyche to heal, and to grow scar tissue. 

The story deals with three time periods - before the civil war, presumably in socialist Yugoslavia; the civil war itself; and the time after, in newly formed Croatia. The narration goes back and forth between these times, is a bit confusing. Often I was not clear just which period the narration was referring to. The author keeps promising ghastly revelations, but when the revelations are actually made, they are emphasized so little, and mixed up in so many different back and forth movements of the storyline, that we keep looking for something else right to the end of the book. But the narration just kind of comes to a halt, when the English family complete their vacation and return home.

Forna obviously did not write this book from her own experiences. Perhaps she travelled in Croatia recently, and perhaps she did a lot of research. She does sound hugely authentic. Her writing is completely undramatic, though never straightforward. Many of the most important incidents are almost dealt with in passing. Some of the knots of tension she builds up are never resolved. Overall I was left with a sense of  - nice book, nice writing, but I wouldn't have missed much if I had not read it.