A Flag for Sunrise

The problem with political thrillers is that they often become clliche and predictable. There is often a desire, either by the author or the industry, to paint these as modern westerns with well-defined good guys and bad guys. Rarely do we get a novel of more disturbing complexity which challenges our notions of morality and suggest a social structure which lead to corruption of values and moral virtue. Only the best take this opportunity for developing a sense of noir, protraying the darkness of human ambition and petty venal sins, that is often missed. John Le Carre is a notable exception who has remained dedicated to his genre. Rarely do novels produces the types of characters that strive to overcome those structures or achieve some victory, or reach a pivitol moment of epiphany. Such greats include Conrad's The Secret Agent, or Greene's Quiet American. To these one should add Stone's A Flag for Sunrise. There is genre fiction, and there is fiction that transcends genre and which stands distinctive as a work of literature. This definitely falls in the later category. A Flag for Sunrise brings us back to the 1970s and 1980s, where America is fighting a war against communism along it's southern periphery, the backyard of Central America. It is a period often forgotten or glossed over by modern Americans who think of this period as that time when Reagan won his war against Communism. Stone brings us back and cuts out a small story within a bigger story- of a pair of missionaries holding out on a small beach in some fictional South American country, as the world around them falls to the chaos of revolution and a coming apocalypse. One of Stone's strengths is capturing the sense of hollowness of the Post Vietnam Era. This is a time of pessimism, when the potential for evil in foreign policy is very apparent, and where Americans are suffering an identity crisis about their place in the world. This is a powerful theme in Stone's work, seen espeically in The Dog Soldiers, but here it is especially powerful. This is a thriller with a powerful set of characters: disillusioned American vets from the Vietnam War, an idealistic nun, well intentioned journalists, manipulative revolutionaries, despotic policemen, aging pirates and smugglers, political manipulators, spies and hired guns. These people collide with intense drama and tragedy. At the heart of the story are three characters, a disillusioned veteran of Vietnam, the idealistic nun and a military deserter whose vacuous nature becomes a cause of destruction. They remind us that in the turbulence of political change, individuals exist and struggle to survive in these tidal forces. There is a horror here, of structure and character, of vice and ambition, and of the dark side of the human heart and perhaps those aspects of our humanity that finally may redeem us. What is achieved is a work of art that stands far and above most political fiction you will likely read in a long time.

In its setting and background a Flag for Sunrise rests firmly in Graham Greene and Ernest Hemmingway territory - a fictional Central American country run by a right wing military regime. The cast of characters holds few suprises - the whisky priest, the idealistic nun, the american abroad, the sadistic secret policeman, various members of the world intelligence services. What struck me about a Flag for Sunrise was its uncomprimisingly dark view of the world and the politics that makes it function. A world where all that is important is power and strength and your ability to harness these forces for your own self interest. A world where morals have no place, in fact a place where morals will get you killed, often slowly and painfully. Yet somehow the book remains rivetting. You know that it is going to end badly for those characters that you like, at times it is difficult to turn the page, but you do anyhow and what happens is often worse than your darkest imaginings. But it is also honest.This is the second Robert Stone novel that I have read and I am certain that it will not be the last.

The incendiary hint of Revolution simmers on the surface of a South American country beset by poverty and the all-consuming appetite of corporate gluttony. The rolling green hills and sparkling beaches of Tecan are perfect for exploitation. The land is already littered with an assortment of "investors" jockeying for inside information. Revolution spells opportunity, out with the old regime, in with the new, and a tidy profit to be made along the way. The only question is whether to "run with the Rabbit or hunt with the Hare?"Saints and sinners compete in this Third World nightmare, each with a different agenda. It's an ideological train wreck and the ultimate victims are the disenfranchised. The name of the game is greed and the players are the usual: privately owned corporations, interested governments, a militia trained to fight insurrection, various criminals, religious zealots and a panoply of hired spies and assorted operatives. Our personal guide is Frank Holliwell, an American anthropologist with "Company" ties from his days in Vietnam, visiting the region ostensibly to give a lecture. Holliwell becomes one more pawn in a dangerous game with incredibly high stakes.In the final act, no one is who he seems in this Darwinian struggle for dominance. The common people are disposable, the cause is mutable and the quality of civilization a casualty of events. Enter at your own risk, this is Robert Stone at his best. But know this: you step into chaos in this novel (with no separate chapters) that jolts from one state of anxiety to another, watching over your shoulder at every turn.

Robet Stone has always been a novelst of PLACE. Whether in New Orleans,{HAll of Mirrors},Vietnam and the southwest{dog soldiers},or later Jerusalem{Damascus Gate},he inhabits these places as if he were a lifer. IN a FLAG FOR SUNRISE, his finest work to date, he inevnts a claustrophobic,insane CIA crazed counrty,TECAN.A Graham Greene novel written by a close to the edge survivor,this is a complex political religious thriller. There are some chilling moments early on, a whiskey priest{not a very rare breed, in fiction }a radical nun, a reptillian colonel,a cia agent, his latin american contact, a drug smuggler and his wife[bored, they do this for kicks] a psycopathic meth-amphetamine addict,all cross paths and slowly,slowly they come together. Stone along with Heinrich Boll inhabits the same area in fiction, at least for me: morally compromised people, thrown by situation,fate or grace into out of control situations.Also,like Boll, Stone doesnt like happy endings[knowing that there are few, at least now}. This book is a masterpiece of contemporary fiction,one of the better novels of the last 25 years. Stones best to date, a powerful novel filled with potent mix of religion,politics and philosophy.

A complex tale of rebellion and redemption that is so seamlessly told that one gets the notion that Stone possesses all the genius of a great composer as his plotlines are symphonic and orchestral in their nature alternating and complementing each other at every turn. The redeemable thug, the whiskified priest, the forlorn academic searching for meaning, and the Aloysha-like spiritually perfect nun represent the intimately drawn cast of characters that inhabit this novel about a revolution that occurs in the fictional Tikal(an actual name of the ancient Mayan city in Guatamala). To be brief this novel is an himage to Conrad's Nostromo, and although I do not want to suffer the curse of the dead, I would say Stone surpasses Conrad's tale in depth and in sheer virtuosity of prose to himself become a modern master.