An Evil Cradling/the Five-Year Ordeal of a Hostage

Rating:
Summary: Horrific yet capsulating Book
Review: An Evil Cradling, by Brian Keenan is by far the most depressing yet utterly incapsulating book I have ever read in my life. It has been put on the Irish Educational Sylabus and I was told to read it by my teacher. Keenan's ability to describe the smallest things is what makes the book so utterly irresistible.

Eoin Blacklock

Rating:
Summary: I cried, I laughed, I cried some more
Review: This is perhaps the most moving piece of literature I have ever read. In Brian's journey we are forced to take a look at our own journeys through life. I remember when he was a hostage and everyday the local newspaper in Belfast would publish how many days he had been missing. As those numbers crept upward we despaired but his sisters were ever hopeful and forced us to keep him always in our minds. His account of his captivity is so inspiring. It is wonderful to see how his sense of humor and love of the written word kept him going. More recently I have read his accounts of his visit to Chile with John McCarthy. Here is a man with a real gift for using words to describe torrents of emotion and who's use of poetry illuminates the soul. If you read only one book in your life read this one!

Rating:
Summary: As powerful as anything I have every read.
Review: This is undoubtedly one of the most powerful books I have ever read. It is not a chronological or day to day catalog of how one man survived an ordeal which most of us could only imagine (being held hostage in Lebanon for five? years because some terrorists mistook him for an Englishman, when he was actually Irish), but rather a look at how his inner resources helped him survive, and helps the reader understand what a resourceful and mentally strong will it takes to do so. This is a cut above, and frankly, a book that has not been far from my thoughts since I finished it...

Rating:
Summary: Shock, Empathy and a New Understanding
Review: What words describe this book?

Powerful, disturbing, haunting and yet beautiful, inspirational, darkly humorous, certainly well written. Every emotion is experienced as one is taken into the dark world and life he lived. Every emotion stays alive within you for some time after reading it.

Although the book describes in detail the horrible events of his hostage ordeal, the overwhelming theme is the absolute need and tremendous importance of human relationships, interdependancy and love. Mr. Keenan shows us the depths possible in friendship and trust. If these can sustain hostages in hell, certainly they can transform any life. He has caused me to re-evaluate my own human condition.

Equally important in today's post-9/11 world, anyone who is asking what is in a terrorist's mind to drive them to such evil will find answers here. He describes the beliefs, motivations and values of those terrorists who held him - not much removed from those of today. Their world is in every sense foreign to "Westerners."

It is an honor to have read this book. One is left thinking "God bless Brian and God help the rest of us."