Can Violence Bear Redemption? Can Revenge Heal?
Essam Bargad is a child protection social worker. He was once orphaned in an act of appalling violence, and joined a small group of other boys, wandering Southern Sudan and elsewhere, looking for a place of safety. Having found sanctuary in America, he has chosen a profession that offers him the opportunity to save other children, also lost in terrible situations of their own. Yet he is bound by professional rules that limit how he can help, and he is tormented by the question if, in following those rules, he is doing enough for the children who need him. His past continues to reverberate into his present. He is married to Amara, a powerful, loving woman, but all that he will not say about his childhood haunts their marriage. His trajectory towards revenge, towards redemptive violence, towards saving children whom no one else will help, threatens to destroy love, career and life itself.
Of this novel, author Geoff Thompson writes:
There is a phrase Ellis uses in the book that I recorded in my notepad the moment I read it: "Sometimes wounds never heal. Pain feeds on pain." Ellis is proffering an unsettling observation born from his ocean of experience in all things real, and damaging and cruel. But he is also subtly suggesting that an open wound is also an open doorway. He offers a line of enquiry that each of us can follow in earnest and heal our own torn selves from the inside out, "if we choose, in bravery and love, to help others."(and help ourselves).
This is a beautifully crafted novel, but it is also much more: it is educational, it is revelatory, it is forewarning, and ultimately, it is intercessionary. I believe that these words, this story, this author will land in your life like a bomb or a seed, at the right time, with the right information and guide you towards the right direction.
