ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
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Sins of the Father
RON JACOBS has some painful memories triggered by Robert McNamara son’s memoir of the fraught relationship he had with his father, a key architect of the US war on Vietnam
(L to R) Robert McNamara, Lt Col David Clement and Maj Gen Lewis and W Walt en route to the Le My City Hall during McNamara's visit to the Marine units in the area on July 18 1965
[manhhai/flickr/CC]
KEITH RICHMOND relishes a superbly conceived modern version of Aeschylus’ drama of murderous family succession
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a minimalist installation that prompts intriguing connotations
FIONA O’CONNOR questions the achievement of this year’s Orwell prize winner for political fiction
LEO BOIX reviews two powerful Latin American novels in which myth and crime fiction expose the deadly consequences of patriarchy, clandestine abortion and state violence
New releases from Laura Veirs, The Waterboys, and Yard Act
Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today
by Craig McNamara
Little Brown and Company, £24.44
WHEN I read this book by the son of Robert McNamara, a key architect of the US war on Vietnam, I couldn’t help but compare my experience as the oldest son of an air force officer.
My dad wasn’t an architect of the US war on Vietnam; his role was that of an engineer.
Like thousands of others in the military and throughout the US bureaucracy of war, our fathers were family men.
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RON JACOBS is enthralled by an account of the surveillance and political repression on the left in the US
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RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators