A MAN

by Oriana Fallaci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 1980

The corrosive passion apparent in Fallaci's journalism floods her first novel too--and the leap from non-fiction to fiction hasn't altered her focus one whit: it's still pure politics, complex and fierce and European. Alekos Panagoulis is interviewed by the Italian-journalist female narrator here only a day after his amnesty release from five years spent in a tomb-like cell at a Greek military prison; Panagoulis attempted to assassinate the fascist junta leader Papadopolous in 1968. Never having talked despite the worst torture, having even humiliated his jailers with his rashness and almost mad courage, Panagoulis has become a nearly mythic figure. And now, after the fall of the junta (and after he and the interviewer become lovers), he's elected to Parliament; but to a man who once considered blowing up the Parthenon to expose Greek dictatorship, the legislator's life is too small and quiet. So Panagoulis is off again--and assassination attempts (in and by cars) don't deter him from stirring up the post-junta government by going after traitors both Left and Right. . . while at the same time infuriating people by not wanting to see his former jailers, on trial, die. Even the narrator gives up on him again and again--the maverick behavior that seems in love with its own death, with failure--yet she is always there, the next time, to do his bidding; and by keeping her clever but infatuated heroine constantly a step behind Panagoulis, Fallaci slides the book into the shape of classical tragedy. But what the novel excels with--fearsome political intelligence and realism--also leaves not a single air hole through which it (and the reader) can breathe. Ably translated by William Weaver, it's a hot engine from page one to page 512, with no exhaust pipe. Weak on narrative scenes (only the car chases provide fleeting action), strong on probing questions and flinty issues--an alternatingly absorbing and excruciating document from a writer whose admirably stiff-necked posture remains her greatest attraction.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION