THE MAN ON THE RAILS

Two men lie on Canadian railroad tracks hoping to commit suicide while they discuss what brought them to this point in this novel.

An absurd scene plays out in Saskatchewan as Ted, a local man with a painful family history, and Farouk, a Bosnian immigrant, find themselves on the same railroad tracks hoping to get run over by the next passing locomotive. For Ted, this is his third suicide attempt; Farouk has also traveled this road before. Ted reveals that he lost his mother at a young age and had an indifferent father. Farouk arrived in Canada after the war in the Balkans, a Bosnian Muslim son of a Serbian mother and Bosnian father. In the 1990s, Farouk’s mother, Adriana, was sent to Mostar, a Bosnian town that was half Serbian, to write a newspaper article about the city’s history. Her tour guide was Amin, a disheveled Bosnian whom she instantly detested. But in Mostar, where young men jumped off a 100-foot bridge to prove their courage, Adriana got past her prejudices and fell in love. The couple married and made the fateful decision to move to Srebrenica. Back in Canada, the old struggles are tied to the new, as Ted and Farouk must overcome their manias before the next train arrives. Azerbaijani writer Abdullaoglu explicitly confronts some of the worst moments of the Balkan war and does a commendable job of portraying the complexities and nuances of that fraught place at its darkest hour. The storytelling is convincing, and its philosophical aspect has a timely and vital message. A lot happens in this novel, and though the incidents all come full circle, the narrative is weighted much more heavily to Farouk’s story. Some scenes are a bit preachy, but the theme of love overpowering adversity remains authentic.

An absorbing and contemplative tale about the ravages of war and the need for love.