My Revolutions by Hari Kunzru
The review by Jennifer Reese in Entertainment Weekly was so good that I borrowed Hari Kunzru’s My Revolutions from the library, instead of reading something off my shelf. It did not disappoint.
The novel is situated in Vietnam-era England. Mike Frame’s carefully constructed life shows its fragile foundation when one, then another, person appears and reminds him of his radical past. At a young age, he was Chris Carver, a suburban kid drawn to the counter-culture. Starting with peaceful protest, things escalated for him physically and psychologically.
Standing in the crowd that morning with my fist in the air, there was one thing I was certain of: I’d had enough of my father’s world, enough of the idea that life was a scramble to the top over the heads of those poorer, slower, or weaker than yourself.
Carver’s story shifts fluidly between past and present, and back and forth within them, too. Impressively, Kunzru pulls off this complex non-linear narrative; I always knew where I was in time. Kunzru spins out his tale to the end, filling in details that he’d hinted at along the way; the shift from revolutionary youth to the suburban Mike Frame, is finally made clear and sensible.
It’s a powerful, politically unsettling story, well written. It reminded me a bit of Sigrid Nunez’s Last of Her Kind, one of my favorites of 2006, which was set in Vietnam-era New York. Both revolve around a magnetic and politically adamant woman that the narrator is unable to forget, even after the passage of years, and much pain. I highly recommend them both.