Just Finished: Batholomew Gill, McGarr and the Method of Descartes (1984)

[Francis A. Miniter]

In the Prologue, set in Belfast, 1971, as the Troubles are
coming to a boil, a Roman Catholic man working in London and
home to visit his mother, is seized by the British military,
held without charges, and tortured. He is subjected to
sleep deprivation, bright lights, non-stop sounds of people
screaming, being stripped naked and kept in cold rooms,
being forced to maintain extremely uncomfortable positions
for very long periods of time, and similar methods believed
by the British military to cause people to break and tell
all. In short, Gill anticipated the methods used by the
Americans in Iraq and Guantanamo.

But what Gill says, and this is consistent with the studies
of scientists on the issue, is that such torture impairs
memory. Gill has his character barely able to remember who
he is after a few days, let alone when he lived where. Not
that the character had anything to tell them; they picked
him up because he once lived on the same block, though not
at the same time, as a man named Sean, whom they believed to
be a terrorist.

He is eventually released. And, not surprisingly, he
becomes a terrorist.

Good plot. The only thing I didn't like was the somewhat
alternative reality ending.

--
Francis A. Miniter

Oscuramente
libros, laminas, llaves
siguen mi suerte.

Jorge Luis Borges, La Cifra Haiku, 6