Dark Side of Valor

Lelia Freeman hasn't had an easy life and the broad, sweeping arc of her experience sets up the Dark Side of Valor, a debut suspense novel by Alicia Singleton. The first half of the book delves into Lelia's childhood, where she is raised by an alcoholic, single mother. When Lelia turns sixteen, she runs away, determined to make a better life for herself. Setting off from New York to Los Angeles, she lives on the streets, vowing to avert the lure of drugs and prostitution. She survives, fending for herself, ultimately empowered by congregants of a Christian church who encourage her to help other homeless runaways.

The novel then fast-forwards ten years. Courageous Lelia has been transformed into a prominent child advocate. When Washington D.C. appoints her to a task force in search of orphans in the war-torn African Sudan, Lelia sets off only to discover the greater political implications of her mission. Things take a dangerous turn when the corrupt president of the Sudan takes Lelia prisoner. Can Elijah Dune, a mercenary grappling with skeletons from his own past, rescue Lelia from a deadly fate?

Singleton has created authentic characters and has embroiled them inside a chilling, complicated story. As rats crawl along tenement baseboards, readers will shiver and feel the palpable depths of predatory evil--and compassion--that lurks inside the hearts of many who cross Lelia's path. The human instinct toward triumph and striving to do the right thing, despite personal cost, are the major threads running through this haunting, suspenseful novel.

Dark Side of Valor by Alicia Singleton

Strebor Books (A Division of Simon & Schuster), $15, Trade Paper, 9781593093853, 352 pp

Publication Date: February 7, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note:  This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (2/17/12), click HERE.

Strength in What Remains

You never know just who might be bagging your groceries at the food store . . . Such is the case with the central character in the latest book by Tracy Kidder (Mountains Beyond Mountains), a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has carved out his own niche in the creative nonfiction genre. Kidder is a gifted writer who crafts well-plotted, page-turners about real people in the throes of real life events. In STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS, he tells the story of Deo, a young man who is in the midst of his medical education when he suddenly finds himself caught up in the genocide that infiltrates his homeland of Burundi (Africa).

A violent, tribal war between the Hutus and the minority Tutsis, forces Deo (a Tutsi) to be swept away from his family. On the run, he escapes death while witnessing graphic and horrific evils. With $200 in his pocket, Deo gets himself on a plane bound for New York (he thinks he's actually going to Belgium) where a cast of strangers, who appear more like angels of providence, begin to help him make a new life in America.

There is a baggage handler at Kennedy Airport who assists Deo through immigration and helps him navigate around New York City. Deo lands a job bagging groceries (working for a boss who is a demeaning tyrant), while he camps out in abandoned buildings in Harlem and later in Central Park. One day, while delivering groceries, he meets an ex-contemplative nun who, after learning of Deo's plight, takes him on as her quest. She sets out to find Deo a proper home and enlists the help of a couple (middle-aged intellectuals) who let Deo camp out in the library of their apartment in SoHo. For the next seven years, it is through the generosity of this couple and the persistent effort of the ex-nun, that Deo is able to return to pursuing his education, studying at Columbia and later, Harvard.

The story is told in a parallel structure. Scenes from Deo's life in New York are intercut with scenes from Deo's harrowing experience amid the terrors of the Burundi genocide. In the last third of the book, the author himself joins the action in Deo's quest to raise money to create (from the ground up, literally) a public health system to aid folks in contemporary Burundi.

It's an extraordinary story.  But for me, I wondered where and how Deo derived his inner strength. His name Deo or Deogratias translates to "Thanks be to God." Before the genocide and even after all the horrors Deo witnessed, what were his core beliefs? What was the level of his spirituality?  

The two paragraphs below (page 186) are beautifully rendered, and they offer the only glimpse of insight to shed light on this point:

Before we left, Deo wanted to visit some of his favorite extracurricular spots: the benches overlooking Harlem on Morningside Drive and the Riverside Church and finally St. John the Divine, the immense unfinished Gothic cathedral in Morningside Heights...We sat down in a pew some distance from the grand altar. There seemed to be a service in progress up there, but we were seated too far away to hear it. "It really blows my mind," said Deo. "The first time I was here I was taking art (at the university) and I said, 'God, if the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican is better than this . . . " He laughed. "I mean, just look at it."

We were surrounded by towering columns. The place was vast, dark, and mysterious. We talked quietly. I had the impression it was in this place and in his other sanctuaries that Deo had reconciled his experience of genocide with his belief in God. He liked to frame his solution jocularly: "I do believe in God. I do believe in God. I think God has given so much power to people, and intelligence, and said, 'Well, you are on your own. Maybe I'm tired, I need a nap. You are mature. Why don't you look after yourselves?" Deo would pause, then say, "And I think He's been sleeping too much."

Kidder makes the case that Deo, a student of philosophy, believes in action more than reflection. But did it ever cross Deo's mind or did he ever consciously recognize positive forces greater than himself at work - forces that saved him, opened doors of opportunity and ultimately enabled him to achieve his goals and give back to those in his homeland?